Dark Secrets
by DemonWinchester
Summary: Three months after Harvadville Leon's still missing and Kate and Claire aren't any closer to finding him. And now a new Pharmaceutical company seemes to have come out of nowhere. Could DreXceL have something to do with Leon's disappearance? ON PERMANENT HIATUS
1. DreXceL

**Disclaimer: Half the characters belong to Capcom, the other half were made up by me.**

**A/N: This story starts three months after the last story ends. For those of you who didn't read my last story this is a sequel to my story 'Resident Evil Degeneration: Reborn". The POV at the beginning of the chapter is to introduce one of the new bad guys. **

**Agent X POV**

The room was pitch black except for a thin stream of moonlight that was just barely visible through clouds and the sad excuse for a window on the back wall. I was stuck watching a test subject while they fixed the cameras in his cell. The annoyance was starting to get to me and I longed for the crumpled figure on the ground to move, at least twitch. I had been watching the sad lump of flesh for hours. I could sense the virus growing within him, yet he wasn't responding.

I sighed and shifted in my seat and glared at the wall. If the test subject did wake up and mutate I would be the only one able to take him down since I have a very similar, strong virus running through my veins. So of course they sent me until they could set up the twenty-four hour surveillance again

The cloud that had been blocking the moon passed over and the room was filled with a soft light. I found myself staring at the man on the ground. He looked like shit, what looked like blonde hair was covered in dried blood and plastered against his pale face. I had no idea how long he'd been here but it looked like it had been a while. From the strength of his virus he should have been here at least two months.

I moved again, towards the door this time, fighting the urge to just leave the room. Smith would be mad if I disobeyed a direct order from her again, and it would be best to stay on her good side since she was the CEO of DreXceL, which was created from the ashes of Tricell. The government had us under surveillance for a while, but of course we easily hid everything from them.

After Wesker was been killed, Tricell had gone under and a few of the head researches got together and started their own company. Within a few months a new company, DreXceL, was created, starting off where Tricell left off with its research.

The door inched open, a young guard walking in, looking around the room with caution before finally looking at me.

"You can leave now Sir, the cameras are fixed. Ms. Smith would also like to see you." He said.

In one fluid movement I was on my feet and out the door, the guard standing behind me stunned. I smirked at the look of fear on his face and continued down the hall, walking quickly out of habit, not because I was in a hurry to reach my destination.

Workers stepped out of my way as I passed them, looking down at the ground refusing to make eye contact with me. It was half out of respect and half that they didn't want to anger me, the one man who had dared to cross me was breathing through a tube. I smiled at the memory and my expression sent the scientists near me running.

The door to Smith's office was open so I walked right in, not bothering to knock or even announce my arrival. Smith tensed and spun around to face me, anger etched across her face. She hated when I snuck up on her, and she hated the fact that I didn't even have to try and it still worked even more. She was shorter than me at five feet three inches with piercing green eyes and curly black hair.

"I told you to stop doing that." She stated angrily.

Anger was the only emotion she seemed to have, other than that she was completely emotionless. Getting her angry was hard to do, but I had accomplished it enough to be amused. I grinned slightly at her, which made her even angrier. She took a deep breath and got her emotions or should I say emotion under control again.

"I need you to get more test subjects, we can't keep waiting for something to happen on the one we have now." She said.

"How long has he been here?" I asked, emotionlessly.

"Three months. We've wasted enough time waiting. We'll keep him under surveillance, but he's not going to be our main objective anymore."

I nodded to show that I understood.

"We've constructed a list of new subjects, each of them have been carefully selected so I would appreciate it if you didn't kill them while collecting them." She continued.

I just nodded, a slight smile playing on the edges of my lips. She always brought up the fact that I had killed the first few intended test subjecting while bringing them to the base, more or less against their will.

Smith took a piece of paper off the printer and passed it to me; I took it and glanced over the list, memorizing the first name in seconds.

"Do you think you can manage it?" Anger was creeping back into Smith's voice. My lack of interest must be getting to her.

"Easily." I replied for the first time.

"Good, and remember we don't need the government paying any more attention to us so keep the pickup clean." Smith warned.

Even though I was there best Agent, I annoyed Smith and she didn't like having anyone talk back to her. I was the only person not afraid of her and she hated it, probably more than the fact I was stronger and faster than her.

"Like I said, it will be easy. Don't waste time worrying." I said, turning to leave the room.

Smith snorted in response and went back to ignoring me. The halls were empty as I walked through this time, obvious the scientists had warned each other that I was walking around.

I paused at the cell door to the blonde test subject, listening to the unsteady heartbeat, the ragged breathing, but most of all feeling the power that the virus inside in. If he ever woke up or even survived he would be strong. With a sigh I continued down the hall and pushed the door to the exit open.

The night air was cold, which was a drastic change from the hot Australian sun during the day. I looked out over the outback before climbing into a jeep that I would take to the city limits, then run the rest of the way. I looked at the address next to the first name on the list and started the car. Holding the steering wheel with one hand I pulled a ski mask over my head with the other. It was a trivial disguise, but it worked well enough to hide my identity.

A lone Dingo howled breaking the thick silence of the night.

**A/N: ****I am SO sorry that this story took me so long to get out but I have been insanely busy. I barely had any free time at all. I'm sorry if this chapter seems really weird, but the next one will be back to Kate. This one was more of a prologue to introduce the new Pharmaceutical company and the new bad guys. This takes place After RE5, even though I have no idea if RE5 did take place three months after Resident Evil Degeneration, but I'm pretending it did. Anyway the next chapter will be better and I'm going to try and get it up next weekend. Please Review!**

**~VampireGirl-102~**


	2. Australia

**Disclaimer: Half the characters belong to Capcom, the other half were made up by me.**

**A/N: I'm got some sort of important stuff to cover in this authors note. **

**I now know my timing for RE5 is off, but that's okay since I'm changing it around. I can do that since this is my story, so Chris and Jill are already back home, they've been back for around two months. The day that Wesker died Tricell crashed and, of course, soon after that DreXceL was created by some of the scientists that worked for Tricell. I hope that helps to clear up some of the confusions about the last chapter. I know it was weird, it was meant to be.**

**The 3 stars like this ***** **means a pass in time. **

**Thanks to…****ShadowMoon2430, Fox Mew Brittany, Chaos0283, M3L2011, ****NiennaFaelivrin, Gramm485, knyghtstar, Gift of the Goddess, tsuki Kariudo - Moon Hunter, -Lucky Lucky Luckless-, and TrueLighT**

**Claire's POV**

"Did you sleep at all last night?" I questioned the slumped figure leaning against the table in front of me.

"Of course I did." Kate replied with a fake smile, though the dark circles under her eyes begged to differ.

"You don't have to lie."

Kate's fake smile faltered and she looked away from me.

"I slept maybe an hour or two." She said quietly.

I sighed in disbelief. I could function on only a little bit of sleep but this was unbelievable. Kate hadn't slept for more than four hours at a time since Leon disappeared.

"You need to sleep, and eat."

"I eat." She snapped back, glaring at me.

"Not much." I said calmly, used to her mood swings by now.

She just glared at me, not arguing back, because she knew I was right. She would pick at her food while reading a report or searching for one she hadn't read yet, eating just enough to keep her from starving to death.

"Look I know what you're going through, when Chris was missing I spent all my time looking for him too but…" I trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence without upsetting Kate. If I told her to calm down and not search as hard I would be a total hypocrite.

Kate looked amused that I didn't know what to say to her. In the 2 month and two weeks that I had lived with her since Leon had disappeared we'd had this fight every other day.

Kate communicator rang cutting off the conversation, she grabbed it and flipped it open.

"Talk to me Hunnigan." Kate said.

Hunnigan dominated the conversation, every now and then Kate would say 'okay' or 'yes' but nothing much more. Confusion flickered across Kate's face and she looked over at me, holding the phone out for me to take it.

"Hunnigan wants to talk to you." She said, sounding as confused as she looked.

I took the phone, hoping that I didn't look like I knew what was going on.

"Hi Hunnigan."

"I talked to Chris and he can't go, so I'm going to ask you. Can you go to Australia with Kate?" Hunnigan asked.

"What's wrong in Australia?"

"There's been a high number of disappearances, and the last one was a government official there on vacation. There's also a rumor that someone is testing bio-weapons in Western Australia outside of the city Bunbury." Hunnigan explained.

"Shouldn't the BSAA be dealing with that?" I asked.

"It would have been your brother going if he weren't on vacation, the BSAA suggest we send Kate because she's had experience and Chris recommended her. That's why I'm asking you to go, I don't want to send Kate alone and she won't take another agent as a partner. You've also had experience with bio-weapons if there is really testing going on."

"I'll go." I said.

"What?" Kate snapped.

I ignored her, and listened to Hunnigan.

"Thank you Claire." Hunnigan said.

"No problem." I hung up the phone and placed in on the table between me and Kate.

Kate was watching me with disbelief, I couldn't tell if she was angry of just shocked that I had agreed to go. I stared back at her, waiting for her to talk, or should I say yell, first. Kate seemed to collect her thoughts and decide what she was going to say after ten minutes of just staring passed by.

"We're leaving in the morning so get some sleep." Kate said and walked out of the room.

She was letting me come? She wasn't going to fight me, yell at me, and demand that I stay here? Who was she and what had she done with Kate? Maybe she just figured she wasn't going to win no matter how hard she fought me. Then again maybe she was planning against me right now, maybe she was going to turn off my alarm during the night and leave in the morning without waking me up. I would have to set more than one alarm just in case.

I got up and walked down the dark hall towards my room past Kate's door, debating whether to knock and try and talk to her. Instead I just opened the door; she wouldn't have answered if I knocked anyway. She didn't even bother looking over at me; she was staring at the ceiling as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. I could see the anger and pain in her eyes, anger that she had yet to find anything out about Leon and pain that it might be too late.

With a sigh I closed the door and made my way to my room, when she was like that she was beyond communication, you could try talking to her but she wouldn't respond. I changed into pajamas and flopped down onto the bed, sleep took over almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

**KPOV**

I watched Claire scramble to get ready, turning off her alarm- alarms really, had almost worked. I hadn't expected to set an alarm on her cell. She slowed down every now and then to glare at me, or curse me out.

"I can't believe you, I'm trying to help you, don't be such a bitch." Claire growled at me.

I did feel bad about constantly working against her but I didn't want to drag her into trouble with me. Chris coming along I might have been okay with since he would stay out of my way and only intervene if he really thought it was necessary, Claire was much more smothering, but then Chris might be afraid of me scratching his eyes out or something.

I smiled slightly at the thought. Chris might be a tough macho man, but when it came me Claire, Jill, or me he was a total sucker. Ever since he got back from Africa he did everything Jill asked. My smile quickly disappeared; Chris had come back less than a month after Leon had gone missing. I closed my eyes tightly trying to force the thoughts of Leon away, but I couldn't they had already invaded my mind.

If I had gone left instead of letting him, or if I had convinced him to leave instead of looking for whoever had come into the building he might still be here. If, I thought bitterly, so many 'ifs', if this, if that, it made me sick. There were so many different options, so many happy endings that didn't happen.

"Kate." Claire said softly, invading my thoughts.

I turned my gaze to her wordlessly, praying that she hadn't seen all the pain on my face. The sad look she was giving me told me that she had seen it all. She opened her mouth to start talking, but I couldn't take it. I couldn't take another 'it's going to be alright' speech.

"We have to leave now or we're going to be late." I interrupted her before she could start. My voice cracked slightly and I winced when it did.

Claire nodded slowly, giving up on whatever she had been about to say.

***

Clouds blocked the view of the ground below us. I sighed and looked back into the plane. Claire was sitting diagonal to me, I could feel her eyes on the back of my neck. I looked back around at her, we were in a private jet and we were the only ones here, I wonder why she wasn't sitting next to me, she had to be planning something.

As soon as our eyes met she looked away from me, down at the newspaper in her hands. I wasn't looking forward to twenty more hours of this. I took another sip of my water and placed the empty cup on the seat next to me. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Claire had moved forward again so that she was in the row across from me. I sighed and leaned my head against the window.

As the time passed my eyelids got heavier, I fought against them but I knew I was losing. I looked back over at Claire once more before I gave in to my exhaustion and let myself drift off to sleep.

***

Someone shook my shoulder hard, pulling me back to consciousness and out of the nightmares that plagued my dreams. I sat up and gasped for air, breathing hard.

"It's okay Kate, it's just a dream." Claire said softly.

I couldn't even remember what the nightmare had been about, I remembered the darkness and gunshots but everything else was a blur.

"How much longer till we land?" I asked.

"Ten minutes." Claire mumbled.

"What?" I choked out.

"There's ten minutes left until we land."

"You drugged me!" I snapped.

"You needed sleep." Claire said simply.

There was no point in arguing, she wasn't going to apologize. I leaned away from her and glared out the window and watched the ground as we landed. As soon as the pilot opened the door I rushed out of the plane, ignoring Claire. She rushed after me as we made our way through the airport. A car was waiting for us outside of the airport. I dropped the bag into the back and sat in the driver's seat.

Claire sat in the passenger's seat and I started the car. We drove through the city in complete silence. I pulled up at the hotel Hunnigan had booked for us and parked the car. Tomorrow the mission would start, but it was late and no one would talk to us at midnight. As soon as we got to the room Claire feel asleep.

I took out a file and sat on the couch. I had probably read it ten times over and found nothing, but I still had the feeling that I was missing something. I knew I wasn't going to sleep tonight, but that was normal.

**A/N: The next one has more action in it. The ending of this chapter was kind of rushed, and it bothers me, but I'm updating now before something else comes up and I can't update for another week. Please review! And I hope to have the next chapter up within a week.**


	3. Trouble

**Disclaimer: Half the characters belong to Capcom, the other half were made up by me.**

**Thanks to…** **TrueLighT, fluffy-hamster-neko, Mel's Wacky Mind, Chaos0283, animelover24271, and spongebobfinalfantasy**

**A/N: Sorry it took me two weeks again to update, but I've been amazing busy. At this rate it looks like I'll only be able to update one every two weeks instead of once a week, but it all depends on how much work I get during the week and over the week end.**

**CPOV:**

I stifled a sigh, ignoring the dark look Kate was giving me. She still hadn't forgiven me for drugging her during the plane ride, but she needed sleep and it was the only way that I could be sure that she would get enough sleep. I turned away from her and continued looking around the hotel room that the missing senator had been staying in, looking for a clue that the police might have overlooked.

"Which Senator went missing anyway?" I asked Kate, facing her again.

"Senator Stone."

"Senator Davis' replacement?"

Kate just nodded. Senator Davis had resigned, and then died just days after Leon had gone missing. It was also had also been the day after Fredrick had admitted that he was the terrorist who was threatening to release the G-virus and start a new outbreak Both Kate and I felt that we had lost valuable information about Leon when Davis died and Kate was still blaming herself about it. I could tell from the look on her face Kate was beating herself up about it again.

"I doubt we'll find anything here that the police haven't, I think we should just move on to the areas that are under surveillance for bio-weapons testing." Kate said, inching towards the door.

"Would arguing be useless?"

"Completely." Kate smiled and pushed the 'call' button for the elevator.

I stepped in before Kate, trying to ignore the urge to run out and take the stairs. I hate elevators; something always seems to attack me when I go in elevators. Or maybe I've just seen too many cliché horror movies, either way elevators made me feel claustrophobic. As soon as the door opened I practically jumped out, the hotel staff gave me a weird look but Kate must have been used to it by now since we did live in an apartment.

I looked around the hotel room, scanning it out of a habit that I couldn't quite break. Kate grabbed my arm and pulled me along behind her, obviously thinking I was taking too long. I glared at her a ripped and my arm free from her grasp, getting into black SUV that we were renting.

***

There was nothing but outback for miles. No people, building, or anything. Just trees and rocks.

"Do you have the feeling there's not really anything here and Hunnigan made up this mission?" I asked.

"Right now, yes I am getting that feeling." Kate sighed, shoving her hands in her pockets.

"I don't even have service here." I complained, holding my phone up even though it was useless.

Kate opened her mouth but whatever she said was drowned out by a low growl. Immediately I dropped my phone and had my handgun aimed at the bush that the sound had come from. There was another growl, this time from behind us and it sounded like large, very angry, animal. My instincts screamed for me to open fire on the bush and my finger inched towards the trigger.

"Don't fire yet." Kate warned me. "It could just be an animal. For now just back away towards the car. If it attacks, then shot."

I nodded and took a slow step back that was answered by an even deeper growl. A giant mutated dog leapt out. There was defiantly bio-testing going on here. Kate shot, hitting it right between the eyes, but the thing didn't even flinch or looked phased at all. I shot twice, hitting it in the leg and the side. Kate finished it off with two more bullets to the head.

"Creepy." She stated and took a picture of the body with her communicator.

As I watched the body started to dissolve into the ground, and I shuddered. Kate sent the picture to Hunnigan then turned back to me.

"There's never just one of them, so I'm sure more infected dogs will show up any minute." Kate said.

"So we're going to track them back to wherever they came from to find out who's behind this?"

"Exactly."

Kate smiled and reloaded her gun while I looked around, trying to see if anymore mutated animals were coming. A loud howl broke the silence and I frowned. Not too far off in the distance three mutated dogs were running towards us. As soon as they got closer I fired, taking out the smallest one.

The largest one lunged at Kate and she shot it out of the air. It landed on the ground with a thud, and dissolved within seconds of the impact. The last dog was hanging back, swaying as if it was unsure if it should continue. With a snarl it leapt forward, making up its mind. I pulled the trigger, but the animal knocked into me, sending my gun flying before bullet could hit it. I held the dog back by the throat as it tried to bite into my neck. I watched in horror as its head began to split in half, opening up to a disgusting mouth. There were two shots and the dog yelped, going limp and falling off me to the ground. I scrambled to my knees, grabbing my gun as I got to my feet.

"So much for following them." Kate sighed.

"I don't think we'll have to."

**KPOV:**

I looked at Claire confused, waiting for her explanation. Instead she just stared; I followed her gaze to a cloud of dust that was heading away from us.

"I think we can follow them." Claire finished.

Three black jeeps were heading towards us, no labels, no licenses plates, nothing. Without a word I jumped into the car and started in, Claire slid in after me; neither of us bothered with our seatbelts. I gunned the engine and raced off after the jeeps.

"So I guess you're not going for the sneaky and secret approach." Claire said.

"No, I've never really been good at that anyway."

"I wouldn't have guessed." Claire frowned.

We were quickly approaching the jeeps and there was no way that they hadn't noticed us by now. Yet they kept going as if we weren't there at all. I frowned and slowed just a tad, then sped up, seeing if they responded.

"Kate!" Claire yelled suddenly, sitting forward and shoving her hand past my face.

Two black SUV's had come out of nowhere and were on either side of us. I braked quickly as one of them tried to swerve into us. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Claire grip her seat, she was glaring at me and didn't look very happy with my driving.

I pushed the petal almost all the way to the floor and shot right past the two SUV's. One of the drivers shot at us, and the back window exploded. I resisted the urge to turn back around and smashing into that guy's car. Claire rolled down her window and shot back, all the while muttering 'I can't believe what I get into while I'm with you' at me or something.

The jeep's had picked up sped and where getting away quickly, but I wasn't about to give up easily. I pushed the car as fast as it would go, ignoring Claire's curse when she looked at the speedometer.

"Look out!" Claire screamed.

I whipped my head around to look out my window and wished I hadn't. There was an SUV heading right at us, and there wasn't enough time to react. I swerved the car, squeezed my eyes shut tightly as the car smashed into us.

***

Everything hurt, my head, my arms, my legs, everything. Someone was talking above me but I couldn't make out what they were saying, it all seemed so far away. I tried to move my arm, but something was holding it down. I groaned as a new wave of pain hit my body. Whoever it was stopped talking, and walked towards me.

I did a quick survey of my body, nothing felt broken, but everything felt bruised. I would definitely be hurting for days. With one final deep breathe I forced my eyes open, wincing back from the bright light above me. A head blocked the light and slowly it came into focus. The face had a beard, glassed, and soulless grey eyes.

"You're awake." The man said and smiled.

I glared at him, his smile faltered.

"You've been out for quite some time; you had us worried Ms. Johns."

"Do I know you?" I choked out, my throat was dry and my voice sounded like I had been eating sandpaper.

"No you don't, but we know everything about you."

"We?" I asked, questioning his use of third person.

The man just nodded and stepped back from me. I turned my head to follow his movement; he was a doctor, or a scientist, probably a scientist working for whatever company or whoever was behind the bio-testing.

"Lucky thing you swerved that car or you would have been crushed." The man said happily.

I pretended I hadn't heard him and looked down at my body. My pants where ripped, but I wasn't covered in blood, there were actually only a few dark stains of blood that stood out on my clothes. As I had guessed my arms and legs were strapped down to the table I was on.

I looked around the room, it was white and empty. That's what bothered me; it was empty other than me and the man. He must have been watching me because he chuckled lightly.

"Don't worry your friend's fine. After all she's not the one who's the government agent."

"That sounds like a threat." I said, looking at the man again.

"It is." He said darkly.

"How cliché."

He smiled again; obviously my lack of self-preservation amused him.

"Most people who come in here cry and beg for their lives."

"I'm not most people." I smiled, he frowned.

He ran his hand over an assortment of needles on the counter behind him, my heart squeezed but I kept my face emotionless.

"You know my name but I don't know yours." I stalled for time to make a plan.

"I'm Dr. Martin." He said, turning his back to me and picking up one of the needles.

"Are you married, have kids?"

"No." He answered annoyed.

Good I was getting to him. I smiled and tried again my wiggle an arm or a leg free, but it was useless, I was trapped. Dr. Martin turned back to me, carefully holding a needle in his hands.

"I'm not going lie, this is going to hurt."

My heartbeat sped up as he walked towards me and I pulled at the restraints again, refusing to give up.

"Doctor!" A shrill voice interrupted.

Martin froze and almost dropped the needle he was holding. A woman was standing in the doorway and from the way Martin was acting it was clear he was afraid of her. She must be the one in charge.

"Do you remember what I told you?" The woman's voice was sickly sweet.

"Yes Ms. Smith." Dr. Martian stuttered out.

"Then what are you doing?" the woman who was obviously Ms. Smith snapped.

"I…she was…" Martin glared at me, not knowing what to say. I smiled back.

For the first time Smith acknowledged my presence in the room. She looked at me as if I were the most worthless thing that she'd ever seen, and the only thing that was keeping me from attack her where the restraints. Her lips twisted into the most horrifying excuse for a smile I'd ever seen.

"Put her with the other one, we'll deal with them later."

I glared at Smith, who laughed at me once before turning to leave. Martin visibly relaxed as soon as she was gone and returned the syringe to its place next to the others. He glared at me once more before picking up another one.

"This one is just a sedative, no need to look so worried." He said with a fake smile.

Before I could respond he jabbed the needle into my arm and the whole room started spinning.

"There don't you feel much better now?" Martin sneered, twisting the needle deeper into my arm before ripping it out.

"Fuck you." I gasped before I gave into the sedative and everything disappeared.

**Smith's POV:**

"See what I told you would happen if you kidnapped the American Senator? Now we've got Government agents here." I snarled at X.

"I couldn't let the opportunity pass by, besides isn't it just one government agent."

"The number doesn't matter all it just means that the American Government is suspicious of us!" I yelled, hating X even more with each passing second.

"Or it could mean that an agent came here to look into the Senators disappearance and you were dumb enough to bring that person here." He answered emotionlessly.

"This is your mistake. I told you not to go after the Senator."

"I can get rid of the agent and her friend, don't worry about it." X smiled crookedly.

I glared at his as he left the room with his hands shoved into his pockets. Sending him to finish them off might not be the best idea, but I needed some enjoyment for the day.

**A/N: Once again, SO sorry it took me this long to get the chapter up. Hope you guys like it, I think it's much better than the last chapter, and it was much more fun to right (I love making Kate act like a bitch!) Anyway if I don't get the next chapter up next weekend I'm sorry, but I've been getting so much work and I just haven't had time to write. Please review, thank you for reading and dealing with my late updateds!**


	4. Why?

**Disclaimer: Half the characters belong to Capcom, the other half were made up by me.**

**Thanks to…** **Mel's Wacky Mind, fluffy-hamster-neko, M3L2011, Gift of the Goddess, Midnight Angel of Sorrow, and SpringBorn**

**A/N: Once again I am sorry it took me so long to update! I tried, but I had two essays to do in one weekend and that was only for one class. **

**Oh and everything in Italics is a dream, trust me it'll make sense later. **

**CLPOV:**

I shivered, mostly out of fear. I was in a concrete room, there were two poor excuses for beds against the wall and that was it. I tried not to think about the empty bed beside me, but it seemed to be taunting me. Trying to draw my attention and demand that I notice I was alone. Where was my sarcastic, annoying, and bitter best friend?

"Relax Claire, maybe she got away, Kate's smart." I told myself.

The only sound in the room was the tapping of my own foot, and that was starting to drive me insane but I couldn't bring myself to stop. This was Umbrella, well not Umbrella that was gone, but some other dangerous pharmaceutical company and I had nothing to defend myself with. I didn't even know what I was up against. I always seemed to be the one who got caught in these messes; it was like I was a giant danger magnet.

I looked out the small slit of a window and glared at the night sky. I could have been unconscious for days, or just for hours, there was no way to tell. I got up and walked around the room, it was a short walk, but I was looking for something, anything that could possibly help me. Wouldn't Chris be proud that I was listening to his 'steps to survival'? Step one was know your surroundings, and there really wasn't much to memorize. I couldn't really remember the rest of the steps he told me, I would zone out whenever he went on one of his rants. There was one about always carrying a knife or something, but that wouldn't really help me now. I knew how to survive without "Chris Redfield's survival guide'.

I smiled to myself despite the situation; it was always good to keep positive, or at least as positive as you could. Without warning the door swung open, blinding me against the sudden brightness. There was a light thud and the door slammed shut loudly. Within seconds I was at Kate's side. She was laying face first on the ground; the only comfort was the slight rise and fall of her back.

"Kate." I tried shaking her shoulder.

She didn't respond. I wrapped Kate's arm around my shoulder and pulled her up. Slowly, I made my way towards the beds and dropped her on the nearest one. She was out cold, no doubt about it. She didn't seem to be hurt so I gave up on shaking her awake. I collapsed onto the other bed and started counting the cracks on the wall.

**KPOV:**

_The room was dark; I couldn't even see my hand inches from my face. I couldn't remember how I got here, or why I was here, I didn't even know were here was. _

_"Hello!" I called out to no one in particular._

_Stupid, I thought, what are you doing it's a dream no one is going to answer you._

_A dark laugh filled the air, it seemed like it was coming from everywhere. I shut my eyes tightly and tried to force myself to wake up._

_Whoever, or whatever, it was laughed again. I suppressed a shiver, it was a nightmare yet it felt so real._

_"Because it is." The voice taunted me. _

_It sounded like the person was right in front of me. I opened my eyes and tried not to scream. Blood covered the face and hair of the man in front of me. His blonde hair was a mess of knots and dried blood, plastered against his face. His lips were curled back in an awful smile revealing razor sharp teeth. I couldn't see his eyes and I didn't want to, I could imagine them being black and soulless._

_I took a step back and pinched my arm to wake myself up, but it hurt. Why did it hurt this was a dream, things don't heart in a dream! I'm sure he heard my heart rate speed up because he laughed and started walking towards me. The way he moved was the single most disturbing thing I'd ever seen, it looked like he was an animal that was stalking his prey, enjoying every second of its fear and panic. _

_I tried to step back but I couldn't move. What was going on? It was like I was trapped in a nightmare. The man stopped right in front of me and his smile widened, like he could read my thoughts. He took one stepped back, crouched, and then lunged towards me._

"No!" I screamed my eyes wide open.

I was sitting up in a bed. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest, it was a reassuring sound, I was still alive, and it was just a dream.

"Are you alright Kate?" Claire asked.

I jumped, almost forgetting she was there, and everything came flooding back to me; the mission in Australia, the car cash, Dr. Martin, being drugged, and now this. Great I had woken up from one nightmare into another, and I couldn't escape this one as easily as the dream one. I groaned my body was stiff, how long had I been out?

"It was just another nightmare, nothing serious."

Claire nodded, she understood what I meant. We all had nightmares, every survivor of the bio-attacks. Chris hardly talked about his, but you could tell from the days he had dark circles under his eyes and his face had a haunted look.

"Any plan?" I asked without real hope.

"No."

"We're trapped?"

"Yeah." Clair sighed.

"Great." I muttered.

Eventually Hunnigan would notice that it was taking too long for me to contact her, it's possible that she may have already noticed, and she would start looking for us. But who knew how long it would take for them to find us, or if they could find us, they had no idea where to look. Claire and I couldn't just sit here and home a rescue team would burst in a carry us off to safety, we had to fight our way out of here.

"What are you thinking?" Claire asked.

"I'm trying to think of a plan."

"Any luck with that?" Claire half-smiled.

"None." I admitted. "Do you know how long we've been here?"

Before she could answer the door burst open and two heavily armed guards stepped into the room. Smith came in after them. I was on my feet in seconds, one of the guards glared at me; it must have been his way of warning me not to do anything. Claire was on her feet but she was more cautious getting up, taking it into account that I could have just gotten myself shot by acting too quickly.

"You're awake." Smith said simply.

"Really? Never would have guessed that one." I snapped.

She glared; one of the guards shifted the gun in his hand, threatening me. The other guard was watching Claire carefully, but I swear I saw a hint of a smirk on his lips. Obviously Smith wasn't very popular, but everyone was afraid of her.

"Come with me." Smith turned on her heels and walked of the room.

I looked back at Claire, she didn't look to happy with the idea of following Smith but I didn't think we had a choice.

"Let's go." One of the guards growled, hitting me in the back with the gun.

"Hey!" Claire yelled stepping forward.

The other guard cocked his gun and aimed in right at Claire, warning her to stop. She did, but she didn't look very happy about it. The guards hand-cuffed us and more or less pushed us out of the room after Smith.

We walked behind Smith with the guards behind us. Obviously Smith wasn't that worried about us attacking her unprotected back. I looked around the hall, every couple of feet there was another cell door and it went on for miles. How many people did they have here?

Smith stopped and swiped her card through a lock and a door clicked open. One of the guards stepped around Claire and opened it for her. She didn't even look at him she just walked into the next hall.

"Where are we-" Claire started.

"Shut-up." Smith snapped.

"Well alright then." Claire growled.

I laughed, but shut-up when one of the guards elbowed me in the ribs. That would be bruised by tomorrow. Smith stopped again and this time she actually opened the door. We stepped into what was probably her office. Smith took a seat behind the desk, the door slammed behind us as the guards walked in.

"So what are we doing here?" I asked, my voice laced with boredom.

"I wanted so show you something." Smith smiled, and there was something truly terrifying about it.

The guards pushed Claire and I towards her desk, farther away from the door. Someone was obviously going to be joining us. My back was going to be covered in bruises if this kept up. I looked around the room, out of the corner of my eye I could see Claire was doing the same thing.

There were frames on the wall with the old Umbrella logo, which must have brought painful and unwanted memories back to Claire. Beside the Umbrella logo was a Wilpharama logo, Tricell, and after that a DreXceL logo.

"Uh-oh another crazed Pharmaceutical company." I muttered.

Claire tried to cover up a cough with a laugh beside me. Smith was still smiling at her desk; obviously nothing we did was going to spoil her good mood. Even the guards seemed to be unnerved by her eerie smile.

There was a soft click as the door closed, I tensed and resisted the urge to turn around and look at whoever had entered the room. Whoever had just come in was insanely quiet, I hadn't even heard them open the door or step in. Smith's smile widened and I felt my heart sink with fear.

"I'm so glad you could make it." Smith said to the person who had just come into the room.

Bothe the guards looked nervous, I wasn't sure if it was because of Smith's attitude, the new person, or both. I was leaning towards a little bit of both, but I had yet to turn and look at the person so I had no idea if they looked as threatening as it seemed they would.

"What's with the smile Smith? Is something wrong?" The other person asked.

No, no it couldn't be. It wasn't possible, it just couldn't happen. The world wouldn't be so cruel; no it couldn't be so cruel! Just the sound if their voice ripped my heart into little pieces, to turn around and look at him would be too painful. I didn't know if I could take it, no I know I couldn't take it. I could hardly stand the thought.

Smith smiled even more when she saw the broke and utterly defeated look on my face. She was enjoying every second of it, and I couldn't take it anymore. She was sick, this whole place was sick, and just like that every ounce of pain was replaced by an even greater amount of rage and disgust for everything that was going on here.

Smith stood and walked around the desk so that she was in front of me, motioning for him to walk forward, to stand beside her, to stand in front of me. He was there before I could blink everything I wanted so badly to see again but couldn't stand seeing here. The rage grew; I could hardly stand it, and if looks could kill Smith would be dead.

"Is something wrong?" Smith asked in a falsely sweet voice.

That was too much, that was crossing the line. She was over, finished, done for! I lunged at her, ignoring the sane side of me telling me it wasn't worth it, it wouldn't work. That was because it was worth it and I didn't care if it worked, as long as I could wipe that smug smile off her damn face.

We crashed against her desk and as soon as we hit the floor she was gone again. I was against the wall and my back was searing with pain from hitting it. I ignored the pain, Smith was still smiling. I was on my feet again, getting ready to attack her when pain shot through my stomach. One of the guards had slammed the butt of his gun into my stomach. I couldn't breathe; I dropped to my knees and gasped for air. Somehow Claire had gotten beside me in all of this. I didn't look up at her, I didn't look up at all, I knew Smith was still smiling and I just couldn't take that. I couldn't see it again or I would lose my mind.

From beside me Claire asked the words I wanted to say but couldn't to the person I wanted to talk to most in the world. I had to look up when she asked, it was impossible not to, at that moment Smith didn't matter, DreXceL didn't matter, nothing matter, just him.

"Why?" Claire whispered. "Why Leon?"

**A/N: How's that for an ending? I told you I would never, ever, ever in a million years kill Leon! I love him to much! I loved writing the end of this chapter I just got so into it, I meant to stop sooner to add more suspense but I couldn't do it! I had to finish! Anyway I hope you guys like this chapter, or at least like the ending of it. Please review! I promise to try my hardest to update sooner!**

**~VampireGirl-102~**


	5. Hell Hounds

**Disclaimer: Half the characters belong to Capcom, the other half were made up by me.**

**Thanks to...****Eyes of the Devil, loyal yakul, SpringBorn, Mel's Wacky Mind, and Chaos0283**

**A/N****: Sorry it took so long for me to update! I've been crazy busy! **

**I've also been wondering, you guys want this to be a happy ending right? With no main character deaths? Because I've got some really evil idea's that will deal with main characters dying. **

**KPOV:**

Leon stared blankly at Claire; he had no idea who we were that much was clear. Smith laughed coldly and my anger came rushing back. I ignored the burning in my lungs, jumping at her again. I was stopped in mid air by steel arms that trapped me in place. I didn't have to look to know that Leon was holding me back from Smith. I struggled against him, fighting with everything I had, even though it was useless. Smith looked so pleased with herself; I just wanted to hit her until she wasn't smiling anymore!

I kicked Leon in the shin as hard as I could, to angry to feel bad about it, but his grip didn't even loosen at all. In fact it got tighter, crushing my arms against my ribcage until I thought they would snap. I clenched my teeth in pain, but refused to give up.

"Kate, stop please." Claire pleaded.

"No, please don't. I'm enjoying this." Smith taunted.

"You sick bitch, I'll kill you if it's the last thing I do!" I yelled at her.

Leon snorted in disbelief, and I knew if I looked back I would see him rolling his eyes at me. Smith smirked at me and stepped forward so she was inches away. I resisted the urge to spit in her face, knowing it would either get me crushed, or hit with a gun again.

"I'd love to see you try." Smith taunted.

"What are you planning?" I growled at her.

"That's for me to know, and you to never find out."

"So you're trying to take over the world and what? Become queen bitch?" I smirked.

"You can keep taunting me; it's not going to get you anywhere. You're still going to be trapped here."

"Let me guess, mommy and daddy didn't love you. You were the child that they never wanted, a shadow compared to your sibling. They would have giving you up if they were had the chance." Smith didn't say anything, but I saw the anger in her eye building up. "I'm right aren't I? You're just seeking out the attention that you never got."

Smith's eyes were burning with rage; she was holding back the urge to kill me. I couldn't physically fight her, but I could beat her mentally and emotionally now. I knew what her tic was. "Get them out of here." Smith choked out, it sounded like she had something caught in her throat.

"Yes ma'am." One of the guards replied grabbing Claire by the arm.

Leon dropped me, but kept my left arm in his grip, preventing me from getting away. I pulled slightly at the handcuffs that held my arms together, but as I expected it was no use.

Smith turned back to us with a devilish grin on her face. She looked like she was pure evil, a demon released from hell to torment humans.

"Why don't you show them the special project we're working on?"

"Are you sure ma'am?"

"Oh I'm one-hundred percent sure." Smith looked directly at me and I swear my heart skipped a beat. "Have fun."

Before I could demand and answer we were pulled out of the room and back into the hallway. One of the guards was shifting his gun in his hands nervously.

"Nice going Kate, you're going to get us killed! Why can't you learn to keep your mouth shut?" Claire snapped.

"I've never been good at that."

"Will you two shut-up?" The nervous guard yelled.

"I wouldn't hold your breath." I shrugged.

The guard clutched his gun, I was going to get hit again. In the face, stomach, anywhere, it didn't matter, it wouldn't hurt. At least it wouldn't be as torturous as losing Leon and then finding him here, being used by that bitch. The guard slammed the gun down into my left shoulder; there was a hot burst of pain, then numbness.

"Hey man, cool down." The other guard snapped, pulling his friend away from me.

"If you two can't handle it, I'll take them on my own. You two look like wounded puppies with their tails tucked behind their legs, ready to piss themselves." Leon snapped at the guards.

They automatically stopped shoving each other and nodded, then walked away without another word. What wouldn't they be able to handle, what was the 'special project' that Smith was planning on showing us? And the real question, did I really want to know?

Claire looked over at me. The worry was thick in her eyes. I knew exactly what she was thinking. We were in a situation where we were pretty much completely defenseless, and were going up against some evil unknown force.

"Alright ladies, let's get a move on." Leon said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

He turned on his feet and made his way down the hall, not even bothering to look back to see if we followed. He could probably tell by the sounds of our footsteps that we were right behind him. He didn't need anyone watching out to make sure we didn't attack him from behind. Even if we wanted to he could protect him.

Leon stopped at a door and pushed it open, motioning for us to go into a dark room before him. Claire stepped in reluctantly, shooting me a worried look as I followed behind her. Leon stepped in and the door slammed shut behind him. He grabbed my arms and unlocked the handcuffs, letting them fall to the floor before moving on to Claire and taking of hers.

"What are you doing?" Claire asked.

I could hear the hope in her voice. It was almost as if Claire had asked Leon if he remembered us, and was letting both of us go. He didn't answer he just pulled out of handgun. Claire stepped back and I immediately raised my hands in surrender.

"Take it easy, I'm not going to shoot you." Leon laughed as if it were the most absurd thing he'd ever heard. "But trust me; you're going to wish I had. This is to make the stakes a little more equal, not by much, but it could be the difference between two minutes and five."

He tossed the gun to Claire, who caught it and instantly checked to make sure it was loaded. She glanced up and Leon warily, as if she expected him to take it back at any second.

"Your really don't remember do you?" I whispered.

I couldn't stop myself, it just came out. Leon's eyes narrowed in confusion, and he looked at me like I had just grown a second head. He didn't need to answer, just the look answered my question, and my worst fear. Whatever they had done to him, it had taken away him memories, he wasn't my Leon anymore. The man standing in front of me was a stranger who was being used as a puppet. I held back tears, and glared at the wall.

The lights suddenly turned and the room was filled with a harsh bright light. We were in a large white room. There were two doors and a wall made of glass that was probably bullet proof. Smith was standing on the other side of the glass, smiling at us. I wanted to pull the gun away from Claire and shot her dead right then and there.

Leon shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away from us to the glass. He stopped and leaned against the wall near Smith, watching us intently. Smith's voice filled the room from speakers that I couldn't see.

"Any last words? No? Good."

Claire snorted, and I looked at her in disbelief. She had a cocky and cynical look on her face that reminded me so much of her brother. God if Chris were only here to help now.

A loud beep broke the silence; I winced and gripped my ears in pain. If I didn't die now I would defiantly go deaf. I opened my eyes and wished I hadn't.

The two most massive, demented dogs stood in front of a now open door. Calling them dogs was an understatement. They were pitch black with red eyes and the biggest fangs I had ever seen. They were probably four or five feet tall and were longer then a human, which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't have bulging muscles, and claws that could rip apart steel easily.

"I call them 'Hell Hounds', beautiful aren't they? They're nearly indestructible. They are very obedient though, of course only to me."

"Oh my god…" Claire whispered.

"You'll be lucky if it ends quickly. Sick'em boys." Smith commanded.

The Hell Hounds growled menacingly and charged towards us. Claire shot at them, but they didn't react to the bullets, even when they smashed into their skulls.

I jumped out of the way as one of them slashed at me. Its claws caught my leg and ripped it open. I hit the ground hard and rolled out of the way, a small line of blood trailing behind me. The Hound licked its lips and stalked towards me. I scrambled to my feet and back away, what could I do? I didn't have a gun, I had nothing to protect myself with!

I could see Claire backing away from the other Hell Hound, with the gun pointed at it. She wasn't firing because it wouldn't do anything. The best thing those bullets would do is put us out of our misery as we lay broken and bleeding on the floor.

I pushed the thought out of my mind and tried to focus on the task at him; surviving. My back hit against the wall, I had no where left to go, and the hound was feet, if not inches away. I dove to the side as it lunged at me, protecting my face and neck as I fell. I watched as the Hell Hound twisted it body and bounded off the wall, landing on its feet in front of me.

I crawled away frantically, it looked like it was smiling, enjoying my fear and desperation. Two more shots were fired and the other Hell Hound snarled, but I couldn't look to make sure Claire was okay. If I did my throat would be ripped out before I could ever get a good glance.

The Hell Hound was distracted by its brothers snarl, and it looked away just long enough for me to get to my feet and jump back, putting a bit of distance between us.

The hound snarled when it noticed that it didn't have my trapped against the wall anymore. It launched itself at me, and I raised my arm to protect my neck.

Searing pain burned through my arm as the Hell Hounds fangs snapped down on it. It took all I had not to scream in pain. The Hell Hound held my shoulders down with its paws and bit deeper into my arm. I struggled against it, trying to fight it off with all I had. I felt its claws dig in to my shoulder, like knifes cutting through my skin. This time I couldn't hold it back, I screamed in pain.

"Hold on Kate!" Claire cried desperately.

She couldn't help me; I would be dead before she could do anything. The pain got worse as the Hell Hound pushed its claws deeper into my shoulders and pulled down. I cried out in pain and hit the Hell Hound with my free arm, my left leg was pinned beneath one of its hind paws, I kicked frantically with my right leg.

The Hell Hound pushed forward, trying to get a clear shot of my throat. I pushed my arm back, but the pain was too much. Tears were forming in my eyes; I could see the red spreading down my arm and my shirt, even though I tried not to notice. I let out of broken sob and hit the hound again.

Why did it have to end like this? What had I ever done to deserve being ripped apart? The pain was getting worse; the claws were digging deeper, ripping farther.

"Claire help!" I screamed in pain.

I heard her sob, and two bullets hit the hell hound in the side of its head. The world was already starting to fade, the edges were becoming blurring. How much blood had I lost? I worried in a sort of odd detached way.

"Stop! Please, dear god, stop!" Claire yelled, she sounded far away.

Threw all the pain, growling, and screaming I could hear and odd choking sound. Was it me? No, it was coming from the man, Leon, leaning against the wall. He was clutching the sides of his head it pain, and it looked like he was having trouble breathing. I could see the panic and fear in his eyes. In the back of my head I wondered why he was afraid, Smith would never let him die.

The pain pulled my wandering thoughts away from him. It kept getting worse even when it seemed impossible.

"Help!"

I cried one last time, my voice breaking.

Why did I keep trying?

No one would help me...

No one could…

No one…


	6. Memories

Disclaimer: Half the characters belong to Capcom, the other half were made up by me.

**Thanks to…**** loyal yakul, Mel's Wacky Mind, Chaos-and-Insanity, and Eyes Of The Devil**

**A/N: I put up a poll on my profile for which ending you guys want. I have an idea for a happy ending where no main characters (except the evil ones) die, and one where there are some main character deaths. I like both the idea's I have and I can't seem to pick which one I really want to do, so I'm giving you guys the choice. I'm going to leave the poll open basically until I write the last two chapters, so you guys have a lot of time to pick which ending you'd rather see. I'd really like to know what you guys think since I can't pick and I'm happy to write it either way, and I think it's cool that you guys would get a say in how you want to the story to end. I might even make an alternate ending afterward depending on which ending you guys want. **

**Oh, and everything in italic's for Leon is a memory.**

**L(who still thinks he's X)POV:**

It started with a weird feeling in my chest the minute we stepped into the lab with the Hell Hounds; it got worse as soon as Smith opened the Hell Hounds cages. I tried to ignore it, push it to the back of my mind, but it wouldn't go away. The larger Hell Hound snarled at the girl named Kate, my lungs tightened and I grimaced in pain. I leaned against the wall, fighting the urge to run over and pull her out of harm's way.

What was with these emotions? What was wrong with me, something had to be wrong, I didn't have emotions. They were annoying and useless; emotions distracted you from what had to be done. I glared at Kate as she backed away from the Hell Hound, why was I worried about her, I didn't even know her! I wanted to hate her, but I couldn't, and that angered me.

When the first Hell Hound lunged at Kate and cut her leg open I felt my heart skip a beat. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, trying to distract myself from what was going on in front of me. There were gun shots and I let my eyes snap back towards the fight. The other girl, Claire I think, had tried to stop the Hell Hounds by shooting them. It didn't work, the Hell Hounds hardly felt any pain and would keep attacking until they were in pieces of called off by their master.

There was another snarl and I looked back towards Kate, she was on the ground crawling away from a Hell Hounds that was distracted by the snarls from its companion. That's when it noticed she was gone and lunged at her, knocking both of them to the ground, pinning her down, and biting down on her arm. Kate's face twisted in pain as she tried to fight it off.

My entire body was screaming at me to help her, save her, it was like someone else was controlling my body. I forced my eyes shut, but the image of Kate on the ground, a Hell Hound on top of her was burned into my brain. She screamed in pain and I felt like yelling with her. My body was fighting itself, one part of me trying to save Kate, the other part enjoying watching her die. I was shaking all over and my breath was coming in short gasps.

"Claire, help!" Kate screamed.

I wanted to run out of the room, get as far away from here as I could, but my legs wouldn't move. There was so much blood around Kate, too much; I couldn't look away from the growing red stain. It taunted me and excited me at the same time. It screamed that I had to save her; it rejoiced that the emotions I was feeling would soon be gone.

Claire said something, but my mind couldn't register what she had just said, Smith may or may not have laughed. I gripped my head in pain, praying that it would be over soon.

"Save her, please save her, you can't let her die!" My voice screamed at me inside my head.

"No, let her die. Open your eyes, and watch as the life fades from her eyes." A dark voice countered the other one. It was supposed to sound like me, but it was off. It was too deep and too full of darkness and evil to be me, but it was me.

"Help!" Kate cried again, to no one in particular, she wasn't looking at me, but it was directed at me.

My body tensed and before I knew what was going on around me the Hell Hound that had been on Kate was across the room. It had knocked over the other one and they were backing away into their cages. I had helped train them and they respected me, even though I could see the anger in their eyes that I had disrupted their fun.

My hand was still shaking out in front of me, stretched out from when I threw the Hell Hound. I stared blankly at it, not fully comprehending what I had done. I looked towards where Smith had been, but she was already gone. The darkness inside of me snarled in pure rage.

I let my eyes drop to the ground, to Kate, who was being held tightly in Claire's arms. Claire was murmuring quietly to Kate, trying to tell her that it would be okay and that she would be fine, but Kate wasn't looking at Claire. Her eyes were staring back into mine with alarming clarity, her gaze was demanding and questioning. I didn't know how much more I could take when it suddenly faltered and her eyes fluttered closed.

I was on my knee's beside her in seconds, but it didn't feel like I was the one in control of my body, it was more like I was watching from an outside viewers perspective and not my own. My hand floated aimlessly above the blood covered tear's in Kate's shirt.

"Are you listening to me?" Claire snapped, sounding desperate and angry.

My head shot up to look at her. I hadn't heard what she had said; I had been lost in my own muddled thoughts. The demon inside of me was angry that it wasn't in control of my actions anymore. It wanted me to get rid of Kate, seeing her as a weakness that needed to be taken out.

"No, I didn't." I said, it sounded like my voice, but it didn't feel like I was the one talking.

"We need to stop the bleeding." Claire repeated. Her eyes were guarded, she wasn't sure if she could trust me.

I nodded, Claire opened her mouth to talk again, but I was already leaning forward. I took Kate out of Claire's arm and picked her up gently, trying carefully not to cause her too much pain. Claire didn't look happy with the idea of me carrying Kate, but she didn't argue.

"Follow me." I instructed, turning on my heels and making my way out into the hall.

I could hear Claire following behind me without having to look back to check if she was still there. She wasn't going to try and get away, not while I was holding her friend who was very near death.

Guards and scientists shot me odd looks as I passed by, cradling the broken and bloody body of Kate against my chest. I glanced down and her and wished I hadn't. Her face was unnaturally pale, blood was smeared across her face, and she looked in pain even through the protective cover of unconsciousness.

* * *

_Kate was lying unmoving on her side, facing away from me. A small pool of blood was slowly growing beneath her. I moved towards her and lightly pulled on her shoulder, moving her so that she was lying on her back. My eyes widened in horror when I saw her left shoulder. Blood was flowing out of a bullet wound that looked like it was inches away from her heart. In a desperate attempt to stop the blood flow I pressed my hands against the wound, but the blood kept coming. I watched and waited for her to breathe but she didn't, she just lay still beside me. I waited for the heartache and pain to come but was only greeted by a hollow numbness. I wasn't sure how long I sat there just staring at her._

* * *

My breath caught in my throat, and I stopped walking. Claire bumped into me from behind, not expecting me to suddenly stop. I blinked rapidly, the memory still burning bright in my mind. I knew that I had never met Kate before, but yet the memory seemed so clear, so real, like it had really happened. I glanced at Kate again, what was going on? Why did I care about her so much? When it didn't matter to me whether the whole entire world died, why did this girl, who I had never met before force these emotions, I hated the word, out of me!

"Leon, are you alright?" Claire asked me timidly, I had almost forgotten she was there.

"Why do you keep calling me that?" I choked out, having a hard time speaking.

"Why do I keep calling you what?"

"Leon." My voice was hardly a whisper.

"That's your name." Claire said softly.

Anger burned threw me, I couldn't control the sudden overwhelming force of it, and I felt my arms tighten around, who groaned in response.

"Who the hell are you?" I growled at Claire.

She seemed shocked by my sudden change in mood. She took a step away from me, glancing worriedly at Kate in my arms.

"I'm Claire Redfield and you're Leon S. Kennedy."

"No I'm not!" I yelled back.

"Yes you are. What have they done to you?" Claire whispered.

"They, whoever you mean by they, haven't done anything to me! My name isn't Leon."

"Then what is your name." Claire countered.

I opened my mouth to yell at her, but my voice was caught in my throat as I was hit by another memory like vision.

* * *

"_Who the hell are you?" A man asked he looked angry._

_"Leon S. Kennedy."I replied calmly._

* * *

I blinked once and was back in the present; Claire was standing in front of me looking worried and nervous again.

"You have to help Kate; please she's running out of time." Claire whispered sounding broken.

I nodded once, overwhelmed by the strange visions and unable to talk. I walked down the hall in a daze, trying to piece together everything that was going on around me. I got to the medical wing and pushed the door open with my shoulder. I gave one look at the standing physician and he ran out of the room, giving me my space. I placed Kate gently on the nearest bed. My arms and shirt were covered in her blood. Claire was next to her before I could blink, lightly pulling Kate's shirt back to get a better look at her wounds. Claire let in a sharp intake of breath.

I looked over and narrowed my eyes in response. Kate was wearing a t-shirt so the damage to her arm was clear, but her shirt had been hiding what the Hell Hounds claws had done to her shoulder. The rips in her flesh were deep, and blood was still flowing out of them rhythmically even though it didn't seem possible for one person to lose so much blood.

"Oh god." Claire whispered looking lost and desperate.

I moved away from them and towards the scientist's desk. It was covered in herbs, pills, and various other medicines, but I was looking for one in specific. My fingers lightly brushed against contains as my eyes glanced over the labels on them. I sighed in relief when I saw the container I was looking for and picked it. I filled a glass with water and passed it to Claire along with two pills.

"Try and get her to swallow these."

Claire looked at me suspiciously. I had saved them both from a very violent death and yet she wouldn't trust me at all.

"Why are you helping us?" She asked.

There was a good question. What was I helping them? Why couldn't I just let them both be ripped apart by Hell Hounds and walk away? I didn't have an answer for her, or for myself.

"I don't know." I answered honestly. "It just feels like I have to."

Claire thought about what I said and turned back to Kate, gently trying to get Kate to open her mouth and swallow the pills I had given her. I turned back towards the desk and grabbed one more container and a huge wade of gauze and medical tape. I covered two pieces of gauze with water and turned to hand them to Claire. She took them from me without having to ask what they were for.

I watched as she carefully cleaned Kate's cuts. Claire was looking at Kate like it was her sister laying there and not just her friend. My head throbbed as I was hit by another headache and I looked away from Kate and Claire before I had another fake memory.

I grabbed one last container and covered the rest of the gauze with its content. I moved towards Kate and motioned for Claire to give me some room. She moved back cautiously, watching my every move.

I moved back the shreds of Kate's shirt, exposing her wounds, and carefully placed the herb covered gauze over the wounds and secured them in place with medical tape.

* * *

_"Sit down on the steps." Kate commanded and I did. She sat down next to me and reached into her pocket and took out gauze, and some medical tape. I watched her patch up my arm. She cleaned the wound as best she could before putting on the gauze and taping it down._

* * *

I closed my eyes tightly, as the most recent vision burned in my mind. I was beginning to fear for my sanity, and the darkness inside of me growled in response, begging me to put an end to the foolish visions here and now by killing Kate. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes to find Kate staring right back at me.

Her eyes were glazed over with exhaustion from blood loss and pain, she opened her mouth to talk but grimaced in pain, her eyes slipped closed again, and her head rolled to the side. My blood ran cold, but the sight of Kate's chest rising and falling calmed me down. I cursed myself for being so attached to her.

"What do we do now?" Claire asked softly, she was looking at me with concern; maybe my failing mental stability was much more obvious than I thought.

"Nothing, the herb on the gauze will heal her, it comes from a plant Umbrella found years ago, and it heals almost anything." I explained, I wasn't sure why I did, I wasn't sure of a lot of things at this point.

I had to get away from them before I went completely insane. I spun around, wobbling slightly and pulled the door open, two guards where standing there about to open it. They looked at me shocked.

"Watch them, and take them back to their cell when Ka- the unconscious one wakes up." I forced out, hoping my voice sounded as commanding as I wanted it to.

One of the guards nodded and the other one just stood there staring at my speechlessly. I pushed past the guards and rushed down the hall. I must have looked crazed to anyone watching. I burst open the door to my living area, slamming it shut behind me. I went straight the bathroom and washed my hands franticly, trying to get all of Kate's blood off my arms.

I watched the pink tinted water go down the drain before finally taking a calming breathe and looking at myself in the mirror. My reflection stared back at me with pitch black eyes absolutely no white was left in them, a smirk that I knew wasn't mine was plastered on the face of my reflection.

"You're losing it." My demon reflection taunted. "Just go back there and kill her, end it now before it can get any worse. Force things to go back to the way they were before she showed up. You know you want to. Don't try to push me back anymore, you know you won't win."

I stumbled away from the mirror blindly and back into my room. I collapsed onto my bed, desperately trying to pull myself back together. I was falling apart.

The question was why?

Why did I have those damn visions and why did they seem so real?

What was going on with me?

**A/N: This is a completely different side of Leon as X than before because I wanted to show the internal battle of the real Leon and the virus as they fight for control of his mind. Anyone who read 'Partner Troubles' will notice that most of Leon's visions where from it. The next chapter will be more focused on the girls and them trying to escape. I know this chapter was kind of slow, but I felt Leon's mental stability and the effect the girls have on him should be mentioned. Anyway hope you liked it and don't forget to vote on the poll!**

**~VampireGirl-102~**


	7. Nightmares

**Disclaimer: Half the characters belong to Capcom, the other half were made up by me.**

**Thanks to…**** loyal yakul, Mel's Wacky Mind,**** M3L2011, ****Eyes Of The Devil, ****Osiran Duelist, JapanFreak01 and Wolfcry22**

**A/N: Sorry it took me longer than normal to update, my mom is the only person I've ever met who can get a computer virus after only being on five minutes. Don't worry my laptop is fine now and there was no permanent damage done (thank god for that). And the italics for Kate are nightmares and for Leon are memories, like before.**

**KPOV**

The numbness had given way to pain; horrible, excruciating, unbearable pain. Something in the back on my mind registered that the pain meant I was still alive, which was a good thing, but I didn't stop me from praying for the numbness to come back. Something lightly touched my shoulder, but no matter how light the action was it sent pain burning through my body.

I tried to open my eyes, but it felt like they were glued shut and I couldn't get my body to move, my limbs were too heavy. The pain whatever was touching my wound was causing was unbearable. I wanted to scream, to beg them to stop, but I couldn't get the words to form, I couldn't even see what they were doing to me.

I wished the darkness would just take me already. Unconsciousness was the only thing that could save me at this point, and it refused to come.

Maybe I did scream, or whimper, or something because whoever was hurting me stopped. Every cell in my body was screaming and with one final effort I forced my eyes open.

Someone was standing over me, I knew him right? I tried to think through the cloud of pain in my mind. Oh right, his name was Leo or something like that. Maybe he knew what was going on, and why my shoulder hurt so much. I tried to ask him but another wave of pain hit me, this time it pulled me under with it.

* * *

_I opened my eyes and was greeted by darkness. There was a light in the distance, flickering. I knew this room didn't I, hadn't I been here before? Memories of everything that had happened to me and my last nightmare slammed into me with a crushing force. _

_I was dreaming again, well having another nightmare. I shuddered at the thought of the man with blood covered hair and razor sharp teeth. _

_"Aw, I'm not that bad am I?"a dark and soulless voice taunted. _

_I didn't have to look to know who was there. I stifled a sigh and turned to face the man who had plagued my dreams since I had arrived at DreXceL's twisted lab._

_"It's you again. Why do I keep dreaming of you?" I asked the blonde man._

_"Because I want you to."_

_"What?"_

_"You heard me Kate; do I have to spell it out for you? I'm the one controlling this, not you." He smirked, proud of himself._

_I swallowed the lump in my throat._

_"Who, or what, are you?" my voice was almost a whisper._

_"I'm yet another one of DreXceL's experiments, in the cell three down from yours. I'm about as human as your boyfriend."_

_I must have made a face at his last remark because he laughed. It was chilling, he sounded like a psycho serial killer in the making, and come to think of it he may already be a serial killer. Who knew what DreXceL had him do. The amused look on his face vanished; his eyes were black with anger._

_"You think I'm just another one of DreXceL's mindless pets who kills whenever Smith snaps her damn fingers? Yes, I'm dangerous, but I don't listen to that bitch!"_

_Two facts hit me at once; one, this guy was very dangerous. Two, he could read my thoughts. The blonde man smiled darkly, confirming both facts._

_"You know my name, hell you probably know everything about me, but I don't even know what to call you." My voice sounded strangled and forced._

_"Stark, my name is Stark."_

_I couldn't help but feel a little foolish for talking to someone in a dream. Stark smirked, no doubt reading every thought that went through my mind. I suddenly felt defensive, and more than a little disturbed._

_"Stay out of my head." I practically snarled._

_"Sorry sweetheart, I can't help it. You're thoughts are screaming at me, now that I'm attuned to them. I don't just listen to your thoughts while you're dreaming." Stark retorted._

_I took a step away from Stark, a feeling of claustrophobia overcome me. My breath caught in my throat, and my heart rate sped up. Stark immediately knew the effect he was having on me and mimicked my movement, stepping towards me._

_"This is nothing personal sweetheart; you just get caught in the crossfire. If you need to blame anyone, blame that bitch Smith."_

_"The crossfire, of what, what the hell are you talking about?" I asked._

_"Don't worry Sweetheart, you'll see soon enough." Stark winked._

_My anger flared up over my horror, what the hell was this psycho talking about. I opened my mouth to demand answer when Stark's eyes flashed to black, and by black I mean "holy crap there's no white left in his eyes, he looks possessed" black. My words caught in my mouth and I forgot what I was about to say. _

_Stark's lips curled away from his razor sharp teeth in the most horrifying grin I've ever seen. My entire body froze in horror. Stark lifted his right hand up to my face and snapped his fingers. Instantly, he disappeared and I feel back into the darkness._

* * *

**CPOV**

I couldn't tell if I wanted to punch Leon or hug him. He had saved Kate, but only just in time. If he had a waited one more minute the Hell Hound would have- No, I didn't want to think about what would have happened.

Kate suddenly gasped and sat up straight, then cried out in pain and collapsed back against the bed.

"Take it easy idiot!" I snapped, jumping forward at her. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I was a Hell Hounds chew toy." Kate croaked out.

"Yeah well, you kind of were."

"Don't remind me." She groaned.

"Alright Ladies, time to go back to your cell." A guard said, appearing out of nowhere.

Before I could tell her to stop being stupid and lay back down, Kate jumped out of the bed, swaying slightly before steadying herself. I stood up beside her, expecting her to fall down at any minute.

The guards watched us carefully, walking beside us and making sure we didn't do anything that they didn't agree with. If Kate hadn't been so hurt I knew we would have tried something, but it was too dangerous to make a move now.

I noticed Kate was staring at the door that was three away from ours with a haunted look. I would bring it up when the guards weren't around, knowing that the less they knew about us, the better. I'm sure everything we said or did would be reported right back to Smith.

We had almost made it to the door when Kate stumbled and slumped against one of the guards. He caught her in surprise, but pushed her back as soon as he knew she wasn't about to faint.

I let Kate lean against me as the guards opened the door to our cell and motioned for us to walk in. I gave them one last glare before maneuvering us into the room. She looked way to pale for my liking, and her skin was burning. The door slammed shut behind us.

"Damn it! How are we supposed to get out of this one?" I snarled.

Kate moved away from me and dropped onto her bed, her right arm wrapped tightly around herself.

"Are you alright?"

Kate ignored me, listening carefully to something that I couldn't hear.

"Kate? You're starting to scare me, what's going on?" I could hear the worry in my voice.

She finally seemed to notice that I was talking to her. Kate's eyes snapped towards me, and I noticed the dark circles beneath them.

"Are they gone yet?" she asked.

"Who, the guards? Yeah, they're gone." I answered confused.

"Good." Kate smirked, sitting forward and resting both her arms on her knees.

I hadn't noticed yet, but now it was obvious that she was holding something in her right hand. My eyes widened in shock. She hadn't, had she?

"You didn't? When you slumped against that guard?" I asked bewildered.

"Oh I did, which means we have to move fast." Kate smiled.

Kate opened her hand to reveal the key's that she had snatched off the guard.

"How did he not notice?"

"He probably thought I was trying to grab his ass." Kate smirked for a second, but it disappeared quickly. "Even if he is a dumbass, I'm sure he'll notice sooner or later. We need to get out of here now."

"You want to leave now? You can hardly walk!" I exclaimed.

Kate rolled her eyes and sighed.

"It's called acting Claire."

"Alright, okay…what's your plan?"

**A/N: Sorry this chapter is so short, but I felt like I needed to update since it's been almost a month since I last updated. Next chapter, I promise, will be much better. And yes Stark is going to play a major part in the last few chapters. The first nightmare Kate had with him in it was in chapter 4. Sorry if this chapter seemed a little rushed, but I wrote half of it before my laptop died, and the other half after, so you can tell when my mood changes. **


	8. We need to get out

**Disclaimer: Half the characters belong to Capcom, the other half were made up by me**

**Thanks to…** **Osiran Duelist**, **Eyes Of The Devil**, **thelionheartedgirl, and ..**

**A/N: Once again, sorry about the last chapter being so short, but this one will be longer! Also Leon didn't really 'go bad', because of the virus in him he can't remember anything about who he really is, that's why when Kate and Claire are around he has flashbacks and he doesn't understand them. **

**KPOV:**

"That's the worst plan I've ever heard!" Claire yelled, throwing her arms in the air to exaggerate her anger at my 'horrible plan'.

"Thanks for the support." I mumbled.

"Do you have any sense of self-preservation, do you seriously not care if you live or die?"

"Alright right, what's your plan, because I'm all ears?" I snapped back.

Claire glared at me, and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. I watched as different emotions flashed across her face, but she didn't say anything.

"Okay then." I got up slowly; care not to aggravate my Hell Hound wounds. "Let's go now before they realize that I swiped the keys off of dumb and dumber."

"We don't have any weapons." Claire stood firmly in front of the door.

I sighed and ran my left hand through my hair; my right hand was still holding the keys tightly. Knocking Claire out and leaving her here wasn't option as pleasing as it was looking at the moment.

"We'll just have to be careful then." I countered.

Claire and I stood there glaring at each other, waiting for the other one back down. It was obvious to me that neither of us was going to budge.

"I'll leave you here." I said coldly, I didn't mean it but I just needed her to consider my point.

Claire closed her eyes and suddenly looked very tired. She sighed and raised her hands in surrender. As soon as she moved away from the door I was unlocking it. Slowly, I pulled the door open and looked up and down the hall. It was clear; I motioned for Claire to follow then took off running. We didn't have time to travel slowly, no doubt cameras would see us any second and we had to cover ground quickly.

The entire right side of my body was screaming in protest, my wounds were probably bleeding again. I didn't stop to look, afraid that if I did we would be caught. I stopped running suddenly and kicked the door to one of the locker rooms open. One guard spun to face me, but I hit him in the temple, effectively knocking him unconscious, before he could yell for help.

Claire helped me gag the guard and shove him into a locker. Without talking we quickly broke two other lockers open and changed into the Guards uniforms. While I changed I noted that despite my earlier thoughts, my wounds hadn't started bleeding again. I had expected the gauze to be soaked with crimson blood, but there wasn't even a speck. That didn't matter at the moment, right now we just had to get moving before anyone realized we had escaped. I broke open a glass case and picked out two handguns. The loosely fitting outfits and 'DreXceL Security' caps would hopefully be enough to keep us from getting caught.

"I didn't expect us to get this far." Claire said, breaking the silence.

"See Claire, have faith." I joked, but my voice was tense.

"Now we just have to get out of here and contact headquarters."

I nodded, but didn't say anything. This was the part I didn't tell her about. The plan that I had told her was 'run down the halls to the locker rooms, change, then walk out of the place, hotwire a jeep, and drive to town', but that wasn't what I was planning to do.

"Kate." Claire's voice sounded strained. "That is what we're doing right?"

"No, that's what you're doing."

"Jesus Christ Kate…" Claire sounded exhausted, and I couldn't blame her after everything that had happened.

"I can't just leave him here." My voice was quiet. "What if he's gone by the time back up comes? Claire please, I can't let him slip away again."

It was silent, neither one of us knew what to say. I couldn't look Claire in the eyes; I knew that she would be glaring at me.

"Fine…okay….what do we do next?"

Shocked, I looked up at Claire; she was watching me with sympathetic and caring eyes. As much as I wanted back up, I couldn't force Claire to stay with me while I tried to find a cure in the labs.

"There's no 'we', I'm going into the labs, and you're getting out of her to call Hunnigan." I stated.

"You think I'm just going to leave you here to wander around in DreXceL's labs you idiot?" Claire snapped.

I knew that even if I argued with Claire for hours she was going to follow me. We wouldn't abandon each other, ever.

"We go to the elevators and down into the labs."

**LPOV:**

A loud ringing ripped me from my vision plagued sleep. My eyes snapped open and I glared at the offending cell phone. Smith's number flashed at me from the scene. With a grunt, I rolled onto my side and sloppily grabbed the phone, almost dropping it as I pressed the 'talk' button and brought the phone to my ear.

"What?" I demanded.

"I should have you killed for what you did! Why the hell did you help the government agents?" Smith yelled; her voice burned my ears.

I groaned and moved the phone away, I already had a splitting headache and she wasn't helping at all.

"Answer me, what the hell were you thinking?" Smith demanded; her voice even louder than before.

I ignored the urge to hang up the phone or respond with a witty comeback. I was already in enough trouble with Smith, and with my mental stability in question I didn't want to give her any more reasons to want me out of the picture.

"I don't know what I was thinking, I couldn't stop myself. It just happened." I growled in response.

"You couldn't help yourself? What the hell is wrong with you? Get it together!" Smith yelled at me.

I didn't want to listen to her anymore. She made my blood boil, and everything inside of me wanted her dead. I ended the call and threw the phone across the room; it hit the opposite wall and smashed into a thousand pieces.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and quickly got to my feet, the room spun in response to my movement. I placed a steadying hand on the wall and closed my eyes against the dizziness. When my head cleared itself I flicked the light in my room on, blinking hard against the sudden blinding light.

I caught sight of my reflection and flinched away from it. My eyes were bloodshot and dark from lack of sleep, my hair was a mess, and my face was pale. I looked away before I could be hit with another painful vision. I didn't think I could take another one while all the ones that I had, had while I was sleeping were still spinning around in my head.

I needed to clear my head, so I just started walking, not paying any attention to where I was going. I noted in the back of my head that not many people were out so it had to be late at night. Somehow I ended up in the labs, not looking for anything, just walking. There were a few guards talking, some were on their way back to their room, but other than that the labs were empty.

When I had finally calmed down, I stopped walking ready to head back to Smith's office and face her rage. I spun around on my feet and smacked right into a guards. The impact knocked us both onto the ground, and my hip smashed into one of the lab tables. I hissed in pain, ready to chew the guard out for not looking where they were going.

"Watch where you're going you incompetent-" I looked up at the person and forgot what I was about to say.

Kate was sitting in front of me, rubbing the back of her head where it had hit against the lab table behind her. The cap she had been wearing had fallen off, and I could finally see her face clearly.

"You, what are you doing here, how did you get out?" I demanded, scrambling to my feet and ignoring the urge to help Kate up.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down." Kate said, getting up with exaggerated slowness, her hands held up in a sign of surrender.

I quickly looked around the room, but everyone else was gone. It was just me and her.

"How did you get out?" I asked again.

"If I told you it wouldn't be much of a trick now would it?" Kate tried to joke, but I could see how tense she was.

"I don't think you're in much of a position to be making jokes." I snarled at her.

Kate gulped and shifted uncomfortably back and forth. Whatever she had been planning had obviously gone south the second she ran into me. Her eyes desperately searched the room; she was looking for something, probably something that would help her. She gave up looking, and turned her gaze back to me. There was a surprised look in her eyes, but I couldn't tell what she was surprised about. Was it that I hadn't knocked her out yet, or made any move to bring her back to her cell?

The truth was I didn't think I could. I was just as frozen with shock as she was. I hadn't expected to run into her, it was the last thing I had wanted. Luck just didn't seem to be on my side today. I don't know how long we just stood there, staring at each other, I lost track of time, but each second seemed to make her more uncomfortable. Kate's hands had started to shake at her side.

The tense between us was so thick you could cut it with a knife, and I didn't know how much more of it I could take. With a final sigh, I turned away from her, not sure what I was going to do, but I knew I had to do something.

I was about to turn back to her when something pricked the back of my neck, and a burning pain sent all my nerves screaming. I gripped the back of my neck, expecting something to be stuck there, but all I felt was the wetness of blood. My knees gave out, unable to hold up my weight anymore.

Kate entered my line of vision, which was blurring; she placed her hands on my shoulders murmuring 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry' over and over again. She sounded far away, there was a syringe gripped tightly in her hand. Oh, so that was what pinched the back of my neck. Whatever had been in the needle was now searing through my veins, leaving pain everywhere it went.

My stomach clenched and I leaned to the side, throwing up all the contents of my stomach onto the floor beside me. Was it black? It looked black. Why would it be black?

"Leon, look at me." Kate's voice sounded strangled.

Limply, I twisted back towards her. Her hands moved from my shoulder to the side of my face, and it took everything in me not to just give up and fall against her. The pain moved from my body to my head, it was too much. My head felt like it was going to explode; the pressure was too much to take. I cried out in pain and slumped against Kate.

**KPOV:**

Leon's body fell against mine, almost knocking me to the floor in the process. With great difficulty I pushed Leon back and let him fall to the floor. My fingers went to his throat and pressed on his jugular. The sluggish thud of his pulse greeted me and I sighed in relief. I had been terrified that the cure hadn't worked, that was until he threw up all the black liquid that was beside me.

"Kate." Leon's voice sounded like he had swallowed sandpaper.

I moved closer to him, leaning over him to be able to hear his voice.

"I'm here, it's alright, you're okay." I soothed, placing my hand on his cheek.

"Oh god." Leon groaned, his eyes snapped open.

"What, what's wrong?" I asked, unsure what to do, and what was hurting him.

"Did…did everything really happen?"

I knew what he was talking about; did everything with DreXceL really happen? Leon was back, my Leon, not the monster that he had been turned into. I glanced at the needle that I had dropped after jabbing Leon. Finding it had been pure luck, one of the scientist had been talking about it while I walked by. Smith had asked them about it, and I had a sickening feeling that she had wanted them to give the cure to Leon so that she could have him killed.

"Yes." I whispered.

Leon's eyes closed, his face paled with grief.

"Leon we have to get out of here."

I felt horrible placing even more weight on his shoulders, but we didn't have much time left. There was no way that they hadn't realized Claire and I had gotten away yet, and it would only take Smith a short amount of time to figure out what I had planned.

With a groan Leon pushed himself to a sitting position, nodding slowly. He understood the danger we were in, probably even better than I did.

"Well isn't this sweet." The sickening voice of Smith taunted.

Leon's head snapped up at the sound of Smith's voice. I felt him go rigid next to me. All my anger and rage at Smith slammed into me and I couldn't control myself.

"You bitch." I growled.

Before Leon could stop me, I was on my feet ready to attack Smith. Something metal flashed in her hands, but I didn't care, I wanted her dead.

Everything happened so quickly. One second I was reaching for my gun, the next a gun shot rang out. Leon was yelling something at Smith, for some reason I couldn't understand anything he was saying. Then the pain hit me, it wasn't as bad as when the Hell Hounds had been ripping me apart, but it was still bad. I glanced down at my shoulder, there was a hold in shirt and there was a dark stain quickly spreading around it.

**A/N: I know Leon getting cured happened really abruptly, but I felt like if I didn't do something like that soon I would just be dragging it out too long. There's still at least two chapters left before the end of the story. Kate, Leon, and Claire, aren't going to get out easily and unscathed. **


	9. A little game

**Disclaimer: Half the characters belong to Capcom, the other half were made up by me**

**Thanks to…** **Eyes Of The Devil, Master of the Cupcake, Rosalinda Lancaster Leonhart**

**A/N: Sorry it took me so long to update, I had midterms and a research paper that counts for more than half my grade to do. **

**LPOV:**

I watched as Kate's knees buckled and she collapsed back to the ground. She hissed in pain, clutching her wounded shoulder tightly. Immediately I moved to her side, but she dismissed me with a slight wave of her hand.

"It's alright; the bullet just nicked my shoulder, but Christ! Does everyone have to hit the same spot? My god, just save me the pain and aim for head next time!" Kate groaned.

"That's not funny." I said dryly.

"It's a little funny." Kate countered, a slight smile danced across her lips.

Doors smashed open and Claire stumbled into the room, a guard was behind her with a gun pointed at her back.

"You got caught." It was more of a statement from Claire, not a question.

"So did you." Kate retorted

Claire shrugged in response, figuring anything she said would just be answered with another one of Kate's witty responses.

"You three have been a thorn in my side." Smith growled.

I wanted so badly to rip Smith to pieces, but my body was still reeling from having the virus forced out of it just moments ago. When we didn't respond Smith's eyes burned with anger.

"Get to your feet, now." She snapped.

Kate groaned, but to my surprise didn't argue. Slowly and painfully, I got up, every single muscle in my body screaming in response. I would have leaned slightly on Kate if she hadn't been so pale and looking like she was barley standing on her own.

Smith hardly waited for us to fully get to our feet before she forced us to start walking. Normally Kate and I would easily be able to take Smith down, but this wasn't a normal circumstance. It was sad that it was three against two and yet we couldn't do anything to get ourselves out of this situation.

We walked in silence, Smith in front and the guard behind, Kate and Claire throwing each other looks every couple of seconds. They were having a conversation without saying one word and I suddenly felt like I was intruding by watching. I couldn't help the quick flash of anger that I wasn't included in whatever they were planning.

Smith pushed the lab door open and we all froze, suddenly afraid to move, breath, even blink.

Crimson blood coated the once white walls, so much so that if I hadn't seen the walls before I would think that there were white spots on a red wall. Broken bodies littered the floors, faces twisted in horror with blank eyes starting out at nothing.

Without warning Smith turned on us, her gun pointed right at me, breaking me out of my shock.

"What did you do?" Smith's voice shook with rage.

"I didn't do this."

"Liar." Smith snapped.

"He's not lying! Obviously one of your experiments got loose, and it would be a great idea to get out of here, now!" Kate yelled, suddenly defiant and angry.

Smith turned her gun from me to Kate, but that didn't seem to faze her. Kate just kept death-glaring at Smith, almost like she was daring her to pull the trigger. Before anything could happen between them the lights started to flicker then completely shut down. Seconds of darkness dragged on until they seemed like hours before the security lights kicked in.

"Boss." The unsure voice of the guard, who I had all but forgotten was there with us, broke through the heavy silence.

Smith didn't respond, for the first time since I had met her there was a slight look of desperation buried in her eyes. I heard the guard clear his throat as he desperately tried to get her attention through his terror.

"Boss." He tried again, his voice bordering on despair.

"Shut-up!" Smith barked.

I didn't have to look back to know that the guard flinched. I felt a pang of sympathy for the man, but it quickly disappeared.

"Smith-" I tried.

"Stop talking!" Smith screeched, sounded like she had lost the little sanity she had. Her hand holding the gun was trembling and her fingers were too close to the trigger for my liking.

"No you listen!" Kate yelled, stunning me by gripping Smith and slamming her against the blood-soaked wall. The only thing that calmed me was the sound of Smith's gun clattering to the floor. "You're not in control anymore, and we're getting out of here. You can stay and die for all I care!"

The guard was clearly divided by his fear of Smith and his fear of whatever had killed everyone in the building. He didn't make a move to stop Kate, even though Smith was looking fiercely at him over Kate's shoulder.

"Leave her Kate, she's not worth it." Claire spoke for the first time in what seemed like years.

The tension in Kate's shoulders smoothed vaguely but her hold on Smith didn't falter.

"No, no, no, don't stop. I'm enjoying this."

**KPOV:**

My breath caught in my throat, my blood felt like ice in my veins, and I'm pretty sure my heart stopped beating for a split-second. The sound of his voice was enough to make hell freeze over. I was almost too afraid to turn my head towards the man who had appeared out of nowhere behind us.

When I did look I instantly wished I hadn't. Stark was standing beside next the guard, or should I say the guards body, who now had his throat ripped open, blood soaking his entire front and his eyes wide showing the terror he had felt in his final seconds.

Stark released the clasp he had on the guards shoulder, and the body plunged to the floor, a pool of blood quickly spreading around the body. Subconsciously I noticed Claire back away from Stark, Smith start struggling against my grip, and Leon go rigid. Subconsciously of course because consciously all I noticed was Stark staring at me with his soulless black eyes. His now signature smirk plastered across his face.

I was vaguely aware of Smith pulling free from my grasp and shoving me away from her. I distantly noticed how she pulled something out and jabbed in into her arm. Leon yelled something, Claire pushed past me, trying to stop Smith from her task. Then all hell broke loose. Everything happened so quickly it seemed like a blur. Leon tried to grab me, Smith lashed out at him, and Stark lunged forward at me. The security lights blacked out, throwing us into darkness, I felt myself fly back from the force of Stark slamming into me. My head connected with the wall, the last thing I heard was the sickening crack of my skull against stone.

* * *

My throbbing head was the first thing that I was conscious of. The second was the warm liquid covering the right side of my face. My head was spinning, and I could hardly get my thoughts in order.

Bits and pieces of what happened were coming back to me, but most of it was still fuzzy.

There was the blood, the dead guard; Smith with a needle, and something about Stark. I groaned in pain. I opened my eyes, light blinded me, and I snapped my eyes shut in response. Something pressed against my head and I flinched away from the touch. With what seemed like a gigantic effort, I pushed myself into a sitting position.

The world spun in response, a sharp pain pierced through my skull, threatening to throw me back into the darkness that I had just dug myself out of. A groan of pain escaped my lips before I could force it away.

"Welcome back to the land of the living." Stark's voice sent nails driving into my brain.

Weakly I opened my eyes again, wincing slightly at the invading light. Stark was crouching in front of me, a twisted smile on his lips.

It hit me then that we weren't in the hallway like before. In fact, I had no idea where I was at the moment. Part of me didn't want to know, figuring it couldn't be pretty. The absence of Leon and Claire made my heart skip a beat.

"You're friends are fine…well at least they were when I was there." Stark answered my thoughts, standing up straight.

"I thought I told you to stay the hell out of my head." My voice sounded week.

Stark laughed like I had just said the funniest thing in the world. I frowned at him in response. It was unnaturally hard to focus on what was going on around me. There was no doubt in my mind that I had a concussion at this point.

"Sorry to have to disappoint you sweetheart but that's not going to happen. Anyway, back to the real reason you're here. See I've been stuck in a cell for months, unable to do anything, trapped inside my own head. It was killing me! But, now I'm free. So I've got to start making up for lost time."

"What?"

Not one thing Stark said made sense to me. Of course the concussion, however mild or serious it may be, was not helping in the least. Stark sighed, deeply irritated at my inability to piece together his cryptic message.

"Since I couldn't do anything thing for the past, well god knows how long, my first little game has to be amazing. You know, enough to make up for all the time I spent trapped in that goddamn cell." Stark growled, his eyes flashing dangerous.

"Oh." I said lamely.

Some part of me screamed at the stupidity of the statement. Oh? Was that really all I could think of? I was obviously trapped in a room with a psycho killer, infected with a virus that made him a million-time's more deadly, that was planning on forcing me into some sick and twisted game of his and all I could say was oh?

Stark had evidently been hoping for more of a response as well, since his eyes appeared to get even darker. Is that possible, for black to get darker? Where there even different shades of black? Silently I cursed myself and incapability to get a hold of my scrambled thoughts. In all honesty, it was the concussions fault, not my own.

Abstractedly, I saw Stark smirk, no doubt at my erratic thoughts. It really sucked that he could read my mind, it made me feel violated and one-hundred percent pissed off. I mean how is it fair that he knew everything I was planning to do before I did it? Talk about unfair advantage.

Stark leaned down again, reaching forward to touch my face, I recoiled from his hand. He ignored my vain attempts to get away and brushed his fingers against my cheek. They came away stained red. So that was the liquid on my face, blood. That was probably why my forehead hurt so much and the main element behind my concussion.

Without a word Stark started pacing around the room, calculating his next move for sure. As I watched him my thoughts become more lucid. They still weren't crystal clear, but at least I was starting to understand the true danger I was in. Abruptly he stopped pacing, and made his way back towards me.

"See, I'm going to have a little fun. This building is full of blood-thirsty monsters just waiting to get a taste of you. Someone, I'm not at liberty to say who, decided to let them out of their cages so the monsters could have some entertainment as well. Now, there's only one way out of here, and I'm only planning one letting one of you live. I'm trying to see, when push comes to shove, if you and your friends are really as righteous as you say you are." Stark explained like he was talking to a five-year-old.

"Basically you're trying to get us to turn on one another." I snapped.

"No, I'm trying to get you to embrace human nature Kate. You'll see, even you can't fight it. When the threat is great enough, all humans will turn on each other. See you can't help it, since that's the way you're made." Stark smiled, as if he was trying to comfort me.

"It's not going to happen Stark. I'll kill you. Leon, Claire, and I will all make it out of here. Alive." I snarled in response.

"We'll see, at the end of this. You'll understand what I'm talking about Kate."

And then, before I could answer back, he was gone, leaving me alone to worry about Leon and Claire.

**A/N:**** I got another idea! Yes it's kind of (really) dark. Not sure how much longer the story will last now. Kate was supposed to be all loopy for a little bit, concussions do that to people. Anyway please leave a review and tell me if you liked this chapter.**


	10. Breakdowns

**Disclaimer: Half the characters belong to Capcom, the other half were made up by me**

**Thanks to…** **Eyes of the Devil and Mel's Wacky Mind**

**A/N: Yes I did change my name; I don't really like vampires anymore so it didn't make sense to keep that name. And Sorry it took me so long to update, but I've had testing for basically a month, and an essay that was worth more than half my grade so I've been kind of busy not to mention there was a horrible storm that knocked out my power for almost a week. This chapter begins when the lights went out.**

**LPOV**

It was so dark I couldn't see my hand inches from my face. I wanted to call out to Kate and Claire so bad, but I knew that if I did it would only cause more trouble for us. As soon as the lights had gone out, the fighting had stopped. The absence of sound was frighteningly apparent. I strained to hear even the simplest sound of Claire and Kate breathing, but even that was missing.

After what seemed like an eternity the security lights flickered back on, filling the room with an eerie glow. Claire had her back pressed against the wall; her eyes were wide with fright. Smith and Stark were gone, with not a track of where they had disappeared to. But that wasn't what really scared me, what made me feel like my heart had been ripped out of my chest. No, what was the darkest and most terrifying fact was that Kate was missing too.

"No…" I whispered, looking around desperately.

Claire snapped out of the fear induced trace she was in. All the previous emotions on her face wiped away leaving only grim determination. I must have looked like a lost puppy because she threw me a sympathetic look before standing up.

"We'll find her Leon." Claire said.

From the look she was giving me I could tell that she wanted to say more, something along the lines of 'but not if you keep sitting there'. I swallowed nervously, and shakily got to my feet. Claire was worried too, I could see that, but she also looked more pissed than anything else. I knew Redfield wrath, and I would not want to be on the receiving end of that anger.

Before either of us could say anything else or make a move to find Kate a sharp growl cut through the air. Every muscle in my body froze. Claire's breath caught in her throat at the horrifying yet familiar sound.

"Hell Hounds." She choked out.

I followed her gaze down the hall to the looming black shadows that were snarling at us, blood dripping from their jaws.

"Run."

The second I said the word Claire and I were down the hall, the snarl of the Hell Hounds too close for comfort. It took everything in me not to look back over my shoulder and see how close they were; because I knew it would only lead to more trouble. I dove into the nearest room, making sure Claire got in before I slammed the door, locking it shut. Seconds later the Hell Hounds were pounding against the piece of metal that was the only thing keeping us safe.

"The stairs." Claire nearly yelled, running for the only way out of the room.

We ran across the room and up the stairs, the sound of the Hell Hounds claws ripping apart the door pushing us faster. The stairwell door locked shut behind us, but it would only keep the Hell Hounds busy for a couple of minutes. We had to keep running until we found a bomb or something that would destroy the sons of bitches. Why the hell did they have to be some damn indestructible. Bullets would hardly faze them, only if you shot them in the eye would it hurt and then it would only piss them off. Nothing is worse than a pissed off Hell Hound that had a bullet lodge in one of its eyes. Their sense of smell was amazing and they would be able to find us even if we shot out both their damn eyes.

By the time I was done screaming in my head Claire and I had made it up three floors and were heading for a four.

"Wait stop." I gasped out, not realizing I was out of breath until I tried to talk.

Claire halted mid-step. She was staring at me like I had lost my mind. Maybe I had, after all being used by a test subject and being trapped inside your own mind while a virus ran ramped taking control of your body would drive anyone screaming to the nuthouse.

"We're going to pass the armory."

"Oh." Claire said lamely. Her look turned apologetic.

Howls broke through the calm, echoing off the walls of the stairwell. I burst open the door, letting Claire run ahead of me before I followed suit.

We reached the armory in what should have seemed like no time at all, but felt like an entire lifetime had passed. My mind was screaming at me the entire time that I was supposed to be looking for Kate, that she could be in danger, even worse than Claire and I were in right now. The only reason that I had for going to the armory instead of running down the halls screaming for Kate, was that if she was in any kind of trouble I would be no good to her unarmed in a frantic rush of worry.

From the look on Claire's face she was thinking the same thing. It was clear to me that in the time I had been gone Kate and Claire had become best friends. Neither of us talked when we made it to the armory. The number one priority became 'find something, anything, which can protect you'.

**KPOV:**

I was completely and utterly exhausted, from the being ripped apart by Hell Hounds, getting shot in the shoulder, being smashed against a wall, and all the other shit that had happened, today just was not my day. As much as I just wanted to sit and wallow in my self-pity, I knew I couldn't and I hated that.

With a sigh I pushed myself up with the wall. My head spun with the sudden sense of overwhelming vertigo. It took everything in me to keep myself from puking my guts out. In the back of the mind I wondered what the hell I would puke up, I couldn't remember the last time I had eaten.

When I saw a handgun sitting on the table with a note next to it simply stating 'use this' and crazed laugh bubbled past my lips. So what was Stark, my guardian angel that also had the strong urge to kill me? It was good to know that for now, he wouldn't turn on me. Not sure how long that one would last, with my luck, not very long at all.

I picked up the gun, not surprised to find it fully loaded. It wouldn't stop a Hell Hound, but maybe it could save me from being something else's meal.

With a turn to leave the room, I caught sight of myself in a mirror and flinched back. I looked like death warmed over. The number two thing on my list of 'things to do when I get out of this hell hole' was 'take a much needed vacation', the number one thing being 'hold Leon and never let go'.

Still lost in thought I moved down the hall, nearly tripping over the vast amount of bodies that were littered all over the place. Either Stark, probably him, or the other experiments had, had fun ripping all the people in here apart.

The thought suddenly hit me: What the fuck had happened to Smith? She had injected herself with…something, probably similar to whatever Leon had been infected with. She could be anywhere, and have turned into anything at this point. Maybe not anything, but nothing was stopping her from being a giant drooling monster.

The sound of a Hell Hounds howl broke me from my internal musings. Nothing could match the pure panic and dread that threatened to burst my heart. It hadn't been all that close, no definitely a couple floors up, but I knew that sound would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life; which, I thought darkly, might not last much longer.

I was stuck in place, one side of me arguing that the Hell Hound could be going after Leon or Claire, the other side reasoning that I was in no shape to go after a Hell Hound nor did I have any weapon that could handle it.

Luckily, or unluckily, the decision to not have to be made when a Licker dropped down from the vent, leaving new option, really the only option at the moment: 'fight the Licker to stay alive'.

I leapt out of the way to avoid being impaled by its tongue. Dropping to my knee's to evade a clawed swipe at my head; I shot the Licker twice in the head. The creature was knocked back, withering on the ground before it feel still.

One Licker wasn't so bad, no it was when there was a group of them all coming after you at the same time when you really had to be worried. And where there was one Licker, there was bound to be more, so the best idea was to get the fuck out of there before the rest of them showed up with a vengeance.

Taking my own advice, I sprinted down the hall, trying to keep away from vents. I looked back over my shoulder to check and see that none had come out of the other vent when I ran right into Stark. It felt like hitting a brick wall. He grabbed onto my arm roughly, stopping me from falling lamely on my ass, but definitely leaving some Stark handprint sized bruises on my arm.

"Ouch!" I yelped, trying but failing to pull free from his grasp.

Stark just gazed back at me, an amused smile plastered on his lips. Figuring that struggling would only make his grip harder, I tried my hardest to relax slightly. Stark being here couldn't be a good sign. Had something happened to Leon and Claire? The thought was enough to make my breathing stop.

Emotion flashed through Stark's black eyes, but it wasn't there long enough to read. He jaw tensed, something that I had thought had pissed him off.

"Claire and Leon, are they okay? If you hurt them I swear to god!" I yelled.

In a flash, I was against the wall Stark pressing him arm against my throat, successfully cutting off my air supply. I tried to push him away in vain, my lungs already screaming for air. Stark leaned forward, completely invading my personal space, his lips almost touching my ear.

"You should stop worrying about them and start being concerned for you." Stark growled, pressing harder against my neck. "You have your own damn problems to worry about, why the hell should you care about theirs? Survival should be your main concern. You'll find out eventually that caring about them will only lead to your own downfall. Nothing good can come out of it. They're you're weakness, the sooner you realize that, the better."

Just as the edges of my vision were turning black and my struggles had gone from frantic to sluggish, Stark released me, letting me fall to the ground, gasping desperately for air. My throat throbbed in response, and I winced in pain.

Stark kneeled in front of me and roughly grabbing my chin, forcing me to look at him. A strong sense of déjà vu hit me and if I hadn't been in some much danger I would have laughed.

"I like you Kate, but if you don't start recognizing what is really important I will kill you. The world doesn't need another self-righteous idea with a gun who believes that they're doing everyone some good." He snarled.

As abruptly as he had appeared he was gone. Still struggling for breath against the pain in my burning throat I all but broke down. Tears ran down my face and my gasping breaths turned into pitiful sobs. Why couldn't anything ever be easy for me? I get Leon back and minutes later we are ripped apart by some psycho and his big plan. Who has the strong urge to 'save me' yet kill me at the same time.

My body was absolutely spent, emotionally and physically. Leaving me questioning whether I could get up and keep going on. Currently, I doubted it, all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball, and let the darkness of unconsciousness take me.

**A/N: Not too much happened, but I felt like it should be pointed out how Kate just wants to let go. Don't worry she's not going to check out, she'll eventually get back on her feet and keep fighting. The next chapter will be more action packed, with Smith making an appearance again. **

**Please Review **

**~Electric Jules~**


	11. NOTE

***GASP!* AN UPDATE I KNOW!**

**Hello all! If any of you are still waiting for updates.**

**First of all, I am so so so so so so so sorry that it's been FOREVER since I updated and I could give you a million reasons, but I will simply leave it as: My life got crazy and then crazier and I lost all time to update my stories. NOW, I did have a plan to end this story BUT my computer died and I had to get a new one…so that's gone. So I could either make up a middle to get to the end OR I could tell you planned end, post that and leave it at that. So if anyone is still reading this, let me know and if I don't hear back then I'll just post a final chapter because I do hate to just leave this one sitting here.**

**Once again, I'm sorry.**

**~ Electric Jules**


	12. The Story Continues

**A/N: Okay! I have made up my mind! I've come up with a new ending to the story (after reading it over myself), which probably makes more sense than my original plan since and I WILL finish this story.**

**KPOV: **

I wasn't sure how long I spent lying there wallowing in my grief over the current situation I was stuck in-because damnit, why does this crap always have to happen to me? I should have just been a fucking teacher or something, then I wouldn't have to deal with all this crap-and it was impossible to tell what time it was because no windows meant no lights, and there wasn't one clock in the whole freaking place. Eventually I force myself to get moving and got off the floor, still just as exhausted as I had been before. I had no idea what to expect, everyone could be dead, the building could be on fire, Stark and Smith could have killed each other by now-wouldn't that be nice? But that would never happen. Lady luck had too much fun cursing me to ever let me have it easy. Either way, I had no clue and pretty much no way to find out how long I had been out and what had happened during that time unless I got a move on and actually investigated and no matter how long it had been, Leon and Claire would still be worried. For all they knew, Stark could have killed me by now.

I grabbed my gun of the floor, wondering why Stark had left me a weapon in the first place, hadn't the guy seen enough movies and realized when the bad guy leaves the good guy-good girl in this case-with a weapon the good person-gender neutrality always works-will undoubtedly win in the end? Of course this wasn't a movie or some video game, this was my life and if I wanted to win I'd have to fight my way out. First step was finding Leon and Claire, which was easier said than done of course.

Most of the halls were pitch black with a light flickering every couple of seconds, which kept my eyes from adjusting to the dark and ultimately making it that much harder for me to find my way down the unfamiliar halls. At least nothing was jumping out at me, of course saying that will probably jinx it and in a couple of seconds a vent would burst open with a horde of blood thirsty lickers ready to make me their next meal.

I kept the internal ramble going to keep my mind off the current situation, yes I shouldn't be distracting myself but if I let myself realize just how screwed I really was- well it just wouldn't be a good thing. I had an endless amount of things to complain about and that was much more entertaining than counting my footsteps. The only sound I could hear was my breathing. I didn't know whether that should be comforting or scare the living crap out of me, but it did the latter. My hands were gripping my gun so tightly I'm sure my knuckles were white, losing it was not a good idea but I couldn't help it. I was alone in a building filled with god knows how many free BOW's.

A light snarl cut through my thoughts at that exact minute, I froze. Ironically enough the sound came right from the vents. I cursed my overactive imagination, blaming it for the creature that would momentarily burst out, trying to rip my face off. The seconds seemed to creep by like hours before the thing finally made it move, slamming against the vent and dropping down covered in slim with screech that made my ears ring. It wasn't a licker like I expected, in fact I had no idea what the thing was. It looked like giant human sized bug. I didn't have any more time to wonder about the species of the creature before it came after me, moving with a speed that caught me off guard. It sprayed something in the air, I stepped back quickly firing off a round that bounced off its exoskeleton, doing no damage at all. So I went with plan B, shooting again but this time aiming for the head, which was blow right off. I allowed myself a moment of triumph that was quickly shattered when the thing kept coming after me. Plan B was out the window, which time for Plan C aka run like hell and hope you can put enough distance between yourself and the BOW tying to kill you.

I shot once more, knocking off one of its legs in hope that, that would slow it down enough for me to get away before I ran past it down the hall. I could hear it scrambling after me, but I resisted the urge to look back over my shoulder and see just how close it was. Instead I jumped into a room, slamming and locking the door shut behind it. It would hold long enough for me…for me to….for me to come up with another plan. I had just trapped myself in a room-even if it was a large room-with no way out. I looked around-rather hopelessly- for some sort of way out. There was the door that I had just come through-which the bug thing was now pounding against trying to get in- and a vent above a desk off to the corner of the room. I could either wait for the thing to get in here and maybe kill it or I could chance the vent. Neither option was very appealing, but I needed to pick. Snarls and barking joined the sound of the bugs' screeches in the hallway-hell hounds. My chances of surviving against them with only a handgun were slim to none, so I went to the vent, pulled off the cover and climbed up.

I tried not to think about all the different kinds of BOW's I would most likely encounter in the vent…I've had worse ideas before. Not to say this was a good one, but I've had worse. I crawled quickly, putting as much distance between myself and the room I had just departed from as possible. The vents were hot, muggy and uncomfortable.

"This was a horrible idea." I frowned, suddenly feeling extremely claustrophobic for the first time in my life. Slime, blood and god-knows-what else was coating the side of the air duct I had oh so brilliantly picked as the means of my escape.

The snarls of Hell Hounds below me was what finally pushed me to keep moving forward after my slight pause. I couldn't hear the bug anymore, which meant that the thing had probably become the Hell Hounds next meal. It was better the bug than me, but I still felt a pang of sympathy for the thing when memory of claws and fangs tearing at me flashed through my mind. I closed my eyes tightly as I crawled through the vent, trying to block out all of my thoughts as I just listened. My sight wasn't doing me any good anyway; I couldn't see my hand right in front of my face.

"Why did you have to pick the vent?" I was talking to myself, if that wasn't enough proof that this crap was driving me insane then I don't know what is.

The first exit I found, I took. The quicker I got out of there the air ducts, the better- even if I ended up jumping right into a conveniently placed pit of freaking lava. Luckily there was no pit of lava, just another dark and empty room. I ran my hands along the walls, searching for a light switch and hoping that I didn't end up touching another substance of questionable origins and that at least one part of the building still had power. Finally, I found some sort of switch and taking my chances I flipped it on. The sudden flood of light into the room had me shielding my eyes; it served as one more sign for how long I had spent in the dark.

As soon as my eyes adjusted I looked around the room, trying to get a better understanding of my surroundings and for once it looked like I had made the right decision. I had found my way right into Smith's office without even trying. Score one for me and score too-high-for-me-to-admit for Smith and Stark.

I checked the lock on the door, knowing it would only give me a couple extra seconds against any BOW that might be lurking through the halls but I would take any small sense of security I could get at the moment, then went to work going through the files and searching for anything that could help us.

The computer was a saving grace with a firewall that only took me a couple minutes to hack. File after file of information popped up on the screen, each one more troubling than the last. I needed to send this to Hunnigan, the government needed to know what DreXcel had been planning. Then it hit me, I could call for help. I had a way to get in contact with the outside world! I grabbed the phone, almost snarling in anger when the total silence indicated that the phone line was clearly dead. It would have been nice to hear someone's voice and actually tell them my current situation, but for now an e-mail would have to do. I types a quick SOS note, adding as much detail as I possibly could about the location of the facility and what was happening inside then attached as many documents as I could before sending the e-mail out to Chris, Jill, Hunnigan, anyone that could possibly offer any form of assistance. Fingers crossed they would actually get it.

There were still other files I need to look at before I tried to find Claire and Leon….Leon….I needed to find his file and see what kind of tests they had done on him. I could hardly imagine everything they had put him through…There was Stark. I needed to find his file; it was my only chance at stopping him. I couldn't spend much more time sitting in Smith's office, every second counted. So I sat down and read, going over everything I could in the shortest amount of time possible.

**LPOV:**

The sound of the Hounds finally faded away. I wasn't sure if it was something I should be relieved about or horrified. They were either scared away by something much worse or picked up the scent of something much more interesting. They could have left us alone, only to go after Kate. Once again the familiar twist of fear and panic was back.

Claire pushed the door open slowly, looking the hall up and down before looking back at me.

"Coast is clear. Do you remember the way out of here?"

"Yeah, but it's not going to be easy to get too." I frowned, thinking of all the obstacles that would stand in our way. "We're not leaving without Kate."

It wasn't a question, it was an order, a statement of fact. There was no way in hell I would leave Kate alone in this place.

"I know."

Claire gave me a look that clearly said she hadn't even considered leaving without Kate and was offended that I would even think she would consider that as an option. Once again I was struck at how close the two had become in such a short time, even though it shouldn't surprise me. Life and death situations tend to do that too a relationship. Kate and I were a prime example of that.

"I don't know where to start looking…" I admitted, hoping I didn't sound as useless as I felt at the moment.

"Then we'll just have to look everywhere." The determined Redfield look gleamed in Claire's eyes.

She didn't wait for me to answer, probably deciding we had spent enough time talking. The walk through the halls was entirely silent with only the occasional BOW making a noise to shatter the temporary calm.

"Where is everything?' Claire asked the very question that I had been thinking. "Do you think they could have escaped?"

"It's unlikely. The building has safety mechanisms to keep the BOW's from getting out…but then again, Smith knows how to override them and who knows what she'll do after injecting herself. She was crazy enough before without a virus running through her veins."

"Genius is often mistaken for insanity Kennedy."

I whirled around; gun aimed in the general direction of Smith's voice with my finger ready on the trigger. There she was, standing at the end of the hall. Smith's eyes were an inhuman orange.

"It didn't have to end like this for you. You were a marvelous test subject; pre-trained on all the most efficient ways to kill and more than willing to take a life in the name of a cause you believed in." Her maniacal laugh filled the halls.

"That wasn't me." I growled, hearing the doubt in my own voice.

Smith laughed once again, her face twisting into the horrible sneer that had become her trademark look.

"You really don't believe that do you? We couldn't have made you do all that. You wanted to."

I believed her. Some part of me kept fighting, arguing that it wasn't true and that I knew it wasn't true, but I still couldn't keep the feeling that she was right back; that the darkness that had ruled over me had to have come from somewhere inside of me.

"Don't listen to her Leon. Don't let her get to you." Claire whispered sharply beside me, obviously seeing the look in my eyes.

I stayed silent.

Smith took that as a sign she was winning and continued.

"You're no different than I am. We kill to survive. You're fighting for the wrong side Leon."

"You're wrong!" Claire yelled, looking over at me desperately "Do not believe a word she says. She doesn't know who you really are!"

Claire sighed in anger when I didn't respond. She changed tactics, firing a shot at Smith instead. For just a moment I thought the bullet was going to hit Smith, then in a blur she was gone and the bullet was lodged in wall where her head had been just moment ago. Before we could do anything else she was right in front of us. It all must have lasted a couple of seconds, but suddenly I was thrown back with a sharp pain burning through my chest. I don't know what happened to Claire, just that she was on the ground beside me when I finally caught my breath and looked up.

Smith was standing over us, grinning like a cat that had just cornered its prey and in a way that's what had just happened. I reached for my run again, not surprised when I suddenly had it knocked out of my hand.

"You can't beat me. I am invincible now!"

"Hey! Has anyone ever told you, you talk too much?"

Smith spun around, Claire gasped and I froze.

**A/N: I KNOW! It's a new full chapter and it only took me a year or so to write! I'm so sorry for those who have followed this saga from Partner Troubles. It has taken me forever but I promise I will finish this story!**


	13. Reunion

**Disclaimer: Half the characters belong to Capcom, the other half were made up by me. Resident Evil belongs to Capcom.**

**A/N: It would be nice for the people still following this story to make a comment or something, just because I haven't got much of a reaction to continuing it and want to know if it's worth it since I have ideas for other stories to start instead of working on this one.**

**LPOV: **

"Impossible!" Smith growled, her eyes flaring red.

Chris Redfield was standing in the doorway with his gun pointing at Smith's head. Claire was on her feet in and running towards her brother in seconds, stopping when Smith crouched about to make a move.

"Claire." Chris and I warned at the same time.

Smith just snarled again and in seconds she was gone. Just like before she had disappeared into thin air. We all stayed tense for a moment, not risking a move. When it was clear that the danger had passed Claire ran to her brother, tackling him with a hug.

"It's so good to see you!"

"How did you find us?" I asked getting off the ground.

"I called him." Claire let go of her brother and turned around to face me. "When we got out of our cell, Kate went to find you and I went to go try and contact help."

"Jill and I have been in Australia since the police found their wrecked car; it wasn't until Claire called me that we could locate the building." Chris finished.

"Reinforcements?"

"We sent in a request. HQ wasn't going to send them at first, but after the e-mail Kate just sent-"

"What e-mail?" Claire and I interrupted at the same time.

Chris paused, not expecting the reaction that he had received from both of us. The silence seemed to stretch for an eternity. Chris had information about Kate. The fact that she was still alive helped me relax slightly, but she was still in danger every second that she was away from us and even then we'd all be in danger until we got out of this place.

"It was sent out a few minutes ago. She attached information about experiences and new B.O.W's, I'm sure the BSAA and the Government are sending reinforcements because of it." Chris took out his phone to show us the information, but I was more interested with that time the e-mail was sent. I snatched the phone from him, ignoring his protests and looked right at the time stamp on the e-mail.

"This wasn't that long ago…most of the electricity is down so there can't be too many places for Kate to have sent this from. If we move fast we can find her." I said, suddenly getting hope again. Without a second thought I tossed the phone back to Chris and ran down the hall.

"Kennedy!"

"Wait for me!"

**KPOV**

The message was out, I had read all the needed documents and nothing had arrived to kill me-yet-so all and all things were going pretty well for me. No Hell Hounds were scratching at the door and no bugs had burst down from the ceiling vent, nothing had gone wrong. Which meant something was about to go wrong because that's just how my life works. One final check over the information ensured that I hadn't missed anything important and then it was time to move. Someone must have found out about my e-mail by now and I was pressing my luck by hanging around.

Before I could reach the door, it exploded into millions of tiny shards. I dove under the desk to avoid getting one of the worst splinters of my life. Smith was standing in what was left of the doorframe. Her eyes held a murderous glint that I knew was meant for me. Now I had pissed off many people in my life-some more dangerous than others-but the chill up my spine still felt new every time someone looked at me like that.

"You! You are going to die!" Smith hissed, the humanity all but gone from her voiced.

Smith crouched like she was about to pounce, leaving me scrambling to think of a way to protect myself but before she could lunge that was a dull thud. It was like everything happened in slow motion. The look on Smith's face turned from rage to pure shock as she looked down at the hand that was protruding from her chest. She looked back up at me, her eyes back to the normal color…and she almost looked afraid. In the entire time I had seen her, her only emotions had been rage or…emotionless and now she looked almost human. There wasn't any more time for me to ponder the sudden change in Smith before she dropped to the ground. Dead.

"I've waited so long to do that."

Stark was standing over Smith's body, his right hand covered in blood.

"You killed her."

"I did." Stark raises his hand to watch the blood drip.

"Why?" I didn't know why I was asking, I had wanted her dead as well, but still the question slipped from my lips.

Suddenly his eyes snapped over to look at me. I couldn't stop the shudder that wracked my body.

"You would have done it too, if you had the power." He flexed his hand and stepped forward. "Of course, you would have prolonged it for everything she's done, wouldn't you?"

I wanted to deny what he was saying but…

"You're not denying it." He smirked. "You're just like me."

"I'm nothing like you!"

"Really?"

"I don't murder people."

"No. You just put another label on it."

"The people I go after-"

"Are a danger? Need to be put down?"

"They are a danger."

"Depending on what definition? Yours?"

And that stopped me; the slightest notion that what I was doing might be wrong stuck itself in my mind.

"You're wrong." I answered quietly, all the determination gone from my voice.

"Am I?" Stark walked around me like a hunter stalking his prey.

"Yes."

"You don't sound so sure." He leaned over my shoulder, his face to close to mine for comfort.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I knew what I was doing, the reason why I was working for the government and the reason why I was after the scumbags like Smith and Stark.

"I am." I turned on him suddenly, ignoring the voice in the back of my head that told me this was a very bad idea.

"Kate! Down!"

His voice stopped me from my angry tirade at Stark and it probably saved me from ending up just like Smith. Without question I dropped to the floor, just in time to miss getting hit by the bullets when the guns started firing. I rolled out of the way stopping right in front of Smith's body and trying to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach. The firing stopped and I could finally look up. Stark was gone. Leon was at my side in a second pulling me to my feet.

"Are you alright? Are you hurt? Did he touch you?"

"I'm fine." I cut in, stopping his seemingly never ending stream of question. "Smith however, not so much." I motioned to the body at my feet.

Someone whistled lightly from the hall, my nerves still on edge I spun to face them right away.

"Chris! Wow, you got here fast."

"I think my call is the blame for that." Claire spoke up, stepping around her brother to hug me tightly "What is it with you and getting into trouble?"

"It's just the way I roll." I moved back and looked between the three of them. "We've got bigger problems. I read the file on Stark; he has some of Wesker's DNA."

Claire visibly paled and Chris cursed lightly.

"We've got to get out of here, Jill is waiting outside with a helicopter. We don't have the weapons to fight a BOW with Wesker's DNA." Chris said and he was right. Our handguns weren't going to do anything against Stark other than piss him off.

**A/N: This one is shorter than the others but work has been keeping me busy. I plan for the next chapter to be the last, followed by an epilogue but the story may be prolonged depending on how long the chapters are.**


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